Through the 5 Hole

Hitchcock latest coaching casualty

2010-02-03T21:23:31Z

And another coach bites the dust.
The Columbus Blue Jackets fired Ken Hitchcock today and named assistant Claude Noel interim coach.
Hitchcock is the third NHL head coach to get the axe this season, joining Philadelphia's John Stevens and St. Louis' Andy Murray. He won't be the last. These guys don't last much longer than the amount of time it takes for a carton of milk's expiration date to pass.
Hitchcock joined the Blue Jackets in November 2006 and was the league's sixth-longest tenured coach behind Anaheim's Randy Carlyle, Buffalo's Lindy Ruff, Detroit's Mike Babcock, Nashville's Barry Trotz and Vancouver's Alain Vigneault.
That tells you all you need to know about the profession's job security.

]]> The Blue Jackets were expected to contend for a playoff spot in the tightly-bunched Western Conference this season after making the postseason a year ago for the first time in franchise history.
But after posting a 41-31-10 record last season -- and getting swept by Detroit in the first round of the playoffs -- the Blue Jackets have a 22-27-9 mark, are in last place in the Central Division and 11 points out of a playoff berth with 24 regular-season games remaining.
"This season has been very disappointing for the Blue Jackets organization and our fans and the responsibility for that rests with all of us from management to the coaches and players," Columbus general manager Scott Howson said in a statement.
"Hitch worked tirelessly to build an identity for this team that was missing before he arrived and deserves a great deal of credit for those efforts. He earned and received the opportunity to turn things around this season, but unfortunately that has not happened and it has become apparent that change is in the best interest of our organization.
"Claude Noel is a good hockey coach with a proven track record in the American Hockey League. He knows our team and is deserving of this opportunity."
The Blue Jackets have gotten a decent season from star forward Rick Nash, but they still don't score much and they've allowed more goals than any other team in the West.
Some of the blame for that goes to goalie Steve Mason, last season's Calder Trophy winner as Rookie of the Year. He's been way below par this season with a bloated 3.28 goals-against average and .890 save percentage.
Hitchcock also has been criticized for the team's younger players failure to make much progress.
Columbus split its last eight games under Hitchcock but looked listless in the final two periods of Tuesday's 5-1 loss to Colorado.

Panic mode for Flames?

2010-02-02T20:12:49Z

I actually thought the Calgary Flames could be a Stanley Cup contender this season.
Now I'm wondering if they'll even make the playoffs, especially after dealing Dion Phaneuf and Olli Jokinen.
Sounds like panic moves to me on the part of general manager Darryl Sutter.
Then again, the Flames have been so awful lately that a shakeup was in order, not that the spare parts Calgary received from the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Phaneuf deal helped the team get out of its funk while making their debuts in a 3-0 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers.

]]> "I think it's unfair to judge them so quickly," Flames coach Brent Sutter told reporters of newcomers Niklas Hagman, Jamal Mayers, Matt Stajan and Ian White. "They met a whole bunch of new guys, a new coaching staff, tried to get an idea of what our systems are like, how we want to play.
"I don't think it's right to judge them on their performance tonight but the reality is that we can't have players, new and old, take too long getting used to each other because we have no time for that. We need to win hockey games."
The Flames have lost 10 of their past 11 games while being shut out three times and held to one goal in three other contests.
You have to feel a little sorry for goalie Miikka Kiprusoff, who already has been in goal for 17 of the Flames' 21 regulation losses despite posting a 2.24 goals-against average and .924 save percentage.
Calgary's latest trade -- sending the underachieving Jokinen and rugged Brandon Prust to the New York Rangers in exchange for underachieving forwards Ales Kotalik and Christopher Higgins -- isn't likely to fix their offensive woes much, either.
Jokinen, who has only 11 goals in 56 games, is expected to center the Rangers' top line with Vinny Prospal and Marian Gaborik. Maybe he'll do a better job skating with Gaborik than he did with Flames star Jarome Iginla, who has just three goals in his past 15 games.
Jokinen is probably a rental; he'll be an unrestricted free agent July 1.
But Kotalik, who had eight goals in 45 games with the Rangers, is in the first year of a three-year, $9 million contract and he isn't the typical hard-nosed forward that Sutter covets. He also was scratched for eight of the last nine games he was on the Rangers roster.
Higgins, who has six goals in 55 games, will be unrestricted this summer.

Dumb way to decide OT

2010-01-25T22:24:51Z

Am I the only one who doesn't understand how a team can lose a game -- especially a playoff game -- when it never has the opportunity to gain possession of the ball or puck?
I mean, even the frequently-criticized NHL gets it right when it comes to deciding the outcomes of games, whether you like the idea of shootouts or not following a five-minute overtime. (Teams play all night, if needed, during the playoffs).
I bring this up after watching the New Orleans Saints win Sunday's NFC championship game because they managed to win a coin flip.

]]> OK, it obviously helped that the Minnesota Vikings couldn't stop the Saints in the overtime (or that Brett Favre threw an interception late in the fourth quarter after the mistake-prone Vikings were penalized for having 12 players on the field).
But unlike in college football, where both teams get an equal crack at scoring in overtime, the Vikings' offensive members never left the sideline.
I didn't really care who won the game, so this isn't about sour grapes.
It's just that the NFL does so many things right, it's ludicrous to me that the outcome of a game -- especially one to determine who goes to the Super Bowl -- basically hinges on whether a guy calls heads or tails.
Dumb.

Money flows in Windy City

2009-12-04T22:35:48Z

Ah, to be a young member of the Chicago Blackhawks these days.

Forwards Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews and defenseman Duncan Keith this week signed contracts totaling $135 million. That's a lot of dough for an NHL team, especially one that only a few years ago was lucky to draw in excess of 10,000 fans to a game.

It just goes to show what can happen when a franchise that was run into the ground by the late Bill Wirtz is taken over by a progressive owner, Rocky Wirtz, who happens to be Bill's son.

]]> But it also makes you wonder what the NHL lockout of 2004-05 was all about, the one that resulted in a salary cap that was supposed to put the skids on escalating salaries and -- wink, wink -- slow the escalating prices of tickets.

This season's salary cap is $56.8 million, quite an increase from the original cap of $39 million in 2005-06. The cap has gone up each year, to $44 million in 2006-07, $50.3 million in 2007-08 and $56.7 million last year.

This year's cap also is greater than a number of team payrolls during the pre-cap seasons, even though the economy today is a lot worse than it was then.

As far as parity goes, has the implementation of a salary cap really brought all that much parity? Only six teams -- Anaheim, Detroit, Calgary, New Jersey, the New York Rangers and San Jose -- made the playoffs in all four of the previous seasons in the cap era.

But we digress. The Blackhawks are back after years of awful ownership that resulted in lousy attendance, no televised home games and too many seasons without a playoff appearance.

Big crowds are back, games are on TV and a gaggle of young studs led by Kane, Toews and Keith are leading the way.

It's why Rocky Wirtz had no qualms about locking up the trio to such lucrative longterm contracts.

Remember, he already landed free agent Marian Hossa over the summer, signing him for $62.8 million over 12 years.

Kane and Toews each inked five-year deals worth $31.5 million, while Keith received a 13-year contract worth $72 million. Keith's deal is a bit of a gamble when you consider he's 26 years old and how the 15-year, $67.5 million contract the New York Islanders handed oft-injured goalie Rick DiPietro in 2006 has panned out.

"I don't know if the Hawks would have made a commitment to players in the past, and I think it's important to do that," Wirtz told Chicago reporters. "If you looked at where we came from two years ago, if I said we'd be standing here talking about signing two players for five years and another for 13, you're thinking I'm drinking all the whiskey we sell, or smoking some.

"But what it's really been is if the fans didn't show up, we couldn't do it. If we didn't have the outpouring, the 14,000-plus season-ticket holders, if we didn't have standing room being sold every night, if we didn't have this real excitement, we couldn't do it.

"With that commitment it certainly made the decision easy for us."

Like father, like son? Not a chance.

Milestone for Coach Q

2009-12-02T20:25:00Z

Congrats to Joel Quenneville on pocketing his 500th win as an NHL coach.

Coach Q has never won the big one, as in a Stanley Cup, but he's been a very successful coach nonetheless, taking two teams to the Western Conference championship series - the Chicago Blackhawks last season and the St. Louis Blues in 2001.

But I think his best coaching job came two years ago with Colorado, even though the Avalanche was swept in humiliating fashion by the Detroit Red Wings in the second round of the playoffs.

]]> The Avalanche was gutted by injuries during the regular season, yet finished second in the Northwest Division with 95 points following a 13-5-1 run down the stretch.

Colorado knocked off the Minnesota Wild in the first round of the playoffs before even more injuries struck against the Red Wings, who outscored the Avalanche 21-9 in the four-game sweep that included an 8-2 rout in Game 4.

Then-general manager Francois Giguere elected not to bring Quenneville back for reasons that remain a mystery. He promoted assistant Tony Granato to the top spot and the Avalanche went on to record 69 points while winning four of its final 23 games to miss the playoffs for the second time in three years.

In fairness to Granato, the team was hit hard by injuries again - captain Joe Sakic only played in 15 games - and No. 1 goalie Peter Budaj had the worst season of his career.

It didn't take long for Quenneville to surface behind a bench again. While the Avalanche was losing its first three games of the 2008-09 season, the Blackhawks fired Denis Savard just four games into the campaign and replaced him with Quenneville, who guided his new team to a 45-22-11 record and into the conference finals.

Meanwhile, Giguere and Granato were handed their walking papers in the offseason by Avalanche president Pierre Lacroix.

The Avalanche is playing surprisingly well this season under new coach Joe Sacco, but the Blackhawks are a legitimate Stanley Cup contender with Quenneville, who was an assistant in Colorado when it won its first championship in 1996.

This could be the year Quenneville finally gets to hoist the silver chalice as head coach. It'd be a long time coming and much deserved.

McCain: Coyotes deserve more support

2009-11-19T20:57:21Z

John McCain is a closet hockey fan? Who knew?

Like NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, the Arizona senator is hopeful that a buyer will come forward to purchase the Phoenix Coyotes and keep them at Jobing.com Arena.

"I hope they can stay," McCain told the Arizona Republic. "I hope that the fans will come out. We're going to have to increase the fan base, that's all there is to it. I think winning takes us a long way."

]]> The Coyotes have slipped a bit in recent weeks, but they are much improved with a 12-9-0 record and are looking like a team that could compete for a playoff position in the tightly-contested Western Conference.

Yet the fans haven't exactly been coming out in droves.

The Coyotes have drawn fewer than 10,000 fans in six of their 11 home games and have had embarrassing crowds of 5,855 (against Los Angeles), 6,495 (Anaheim), 6,899 (St. Louis) and 7,968 (L.A.).

"If I would ask our citizenry to do anything, I would ask them to consider coming out to a game and watch this team play," McCain said.

The Coyotes deserve better, but the fan apathy is understandable. The franchise was in bankruptcy before the NHL purchased it, and there are no guarantees it will stay in Arizona.

But my guess is, if these guys continue to win, the fans will come back.

Most everybody does love a winner.

Avs' third jersey: nice or awful?

2009-11-13T19:35:52Z

The Colorado Avalanche has unveiled its new third jersey, one that is predominately blue. Perhaps it's an homage to the Avalanche's predecessors, the Quebec Nordiques, whose sweaters were powder blue.

At least, that's the take of center Paul Stastny, who modeled the uniforms with teammate Kyle Quincey.

Stastny's father, Peter, starred for the Nordiques and is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame. His uncles, Anton and Marian, also played for the Nordiques, who moved to Denver in 1995 and were renamed the Avalanche.

]]> (Kyle Quincey, left, and Paul Stastny model the Avalanche's third jerseys. Colorado Avalanche photo)

"(The blue) is a little darker now, but you can't go back to that now," Stastny told the Denver Post. "This is a bit of a mix, and I think the blue is the part that stands out on these jerseys. My first two years, we had the red jerseys with Colorado across it, and I liked those a lot. But it's always fun to switch it up and have a new look."

Like the previous third jersey, which actually was burgundy, the new one has a diagonal COLORADO type and retro laces at the neckline. It also has stripes on the sleeves.

The Avalanche will wear the new jerseys at 12 home games, starting with Saturday night's game against the Vancouver Canucks.

NHL needs closer look at head shots

2009-11-10T22:35:46Z

Let's hope the NHL general managers take a serious look at hits to the head during their meetings in Toronto this week.

Colorado Avalanche left wing Darcy Tucker (right) can attest to the danger of head shots, having been victimized by Carolina's Tuomo Ruutu in an Oct. 23 game.

Tucker lost consciousness and was wheeled off the Pepsi Center ice on a backboard. He suffered a concussion and needed about 40 stitches to close a gash on his forehead.

Tucker missed eight games and is expected to return Wednesday night when the Avalanche plays in Chicago.

]]> Ruutu was assessed a major boarding penalty and a game misconduct. He also was suspended for three games by the NHL.

But Tucker holds no ill will towards Ruutu, who called him the day after the incident.

"I don't think he had the intention to hurt me," Tucker said Tuesday. "He had the intention to finish his check on a feisty player. He played the game hard, he finished his check and I was in a spot where I was vulnerable. I hit the glass with my face in the wrong spot and it knocked me out."

Is there much more the NHL can do to limit these incidents?

"I have full faith in the NHL and what they try to accommplish with their players and keeping them safe," Tucker said. "Whatever they mandate, it's up to the players to follow the rules."

The irony is that Tucker has a reputation for playing over the edge, and he long has been accused of going after opponents' knees.

"I hit hard and I get hit hard," he said. "You just hope you don't put somebody in a vulnerable spot where you hurt them."

'Andy' gets well-deserved day off

2009-11-04T04:28:00Z

Photo of Peter Budaj by Getty Images

The Streak ends Wednesday night for Colorado Avalanche goalie Craig Anderson, who has started all 15 of the team's games.

It isn't that Anderson hasn't been playing well. He has, despite back-to-back losses to San Jose and Vancouver last weekend.

But he could use a rest and Peter Budaj needs to shake the cobwebs and rust off, and get into a game for the first time. Budaj has been given the nod to play against another surprisingly-successful team, the Phoenix Coyotes, at the Pepsi Center.

Budaj was scheduled to make his first start back on Oct. 23 when the Avalanche played Carolina at the Pepsi Center, but he came down with the flu, and it turned out to be the H1N1 virus (swine flu).

Budaj regained his health and joined the Avalanche for the games against the Sharks and Canucks but served as Anderson's backup.

"He deserves the opportunity,” coach Joe Sacco said today of Budaj. "Craig has played, as we all know, extremely well for us. I think it’s the right time right now to give Craig a rest and get Peter in there."

It'll be interesting to see how Avalanche fans react to Budaj, who is coming off a poor season in which he had the worst record of his NHL career when the team sank to the Western Conference basement.

Anderson was the NHL's Player of the Month for October when he tied a league record for the most wins by a goalie in that month (10), posted two shutouts and had a goals-against average of 2.04 and a .939 save percentage.

Anderson, who signed as a free agent in July, has become a popular figure in town, which puts more pressure on Budaj to excel. The boos are certain to come raining down from the stands if Budaj allows a soft goal or two.

This is an especially important season debut for Budaj, and a significant homestand for the Avalanche, which has gotten off to a 10-3-2 start despite playing 11 times on the road.

The Avalanche needs to prove that its start isn't a fluke. The Avalanche also needs to show fans disenchanted by last year's poor showing that it's worth purchasing tickets to watch the team play.

This homestand, which includes games against Chicago and Edmonton, could go a long way in doing that, and it all starts with Budaj in goal against the Coyotes.

Anderson could join US Olympic mix

2009-10-27T03:13:00Z

The 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver are still four months away, giving a handful of hockey players who weren't invited to the U.S. orientation camp over the summer plenty of time to impress the powers that be enough to earn spots on the Olympic team.

One of them could be Colorado Avalanche goalie Craig Anderson, who is from Park Ridge, Ill., and makes his offseason home in Chicago.

Anderson isn't thinking a whole lot about the Olympic team at the moment, but he has to be opening some eyes in the American camp, including those of Olympic team general manager Brian Burke.

Burke, who also is GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs, watched Anderson make 30 saves against his team earlier this month at the Air Canada Centre when the Avalanche skated to a 4-1 win.

Anderson has continued his extraordinary play, starting all 11 of the Avalanche's games -- he'll be in the crease again Tuesday night when Colorado visits Edmonton -- while posting an 8-1-2 record with a 2.14 goals-against average and .936 save percentage.

Anderson's numbers certainly stack up well with the three goalies who took part in the orientation camp: Buffalo's Ryan Miller (6-0-1, 1.69, .940); Los Angeles' Jonathan Quick (8-3-0, 2.91, .897) and Boston's Tim Thomas (4-3-0), 2.97, .902).

"I'm getting wins, and that's all that really matters," Anderson said. "The goal is to get 'W's' and try to find a way to win, and right now I'm seeing the puck well and the guys are getting goals for me. I'm just doing my job, and my job is to stop the puck."

St. Louis' Ty Conklin (2-1-0, 2.40, .918) is another possibility. He won 25 games with Detroit last season, and it was a surprise when he wasn't invited to the orientation camp.

This much is certain: it looks like the Americans, while decided underdogs in Vancouver, should be pretty solid in goal.

Canada deserves more NHL teams

2009-10-24T00:59:00Z

Hard to argue with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who would like to see more NHL teams in the land of the maple leaf.

Canadian fans watched two franchises relocate to the U.S. -- Quebec to Denver and Winnipeg to Phoenix (now Glendale, Ariz.) -- in the mid 1990s, and BlackBerry mogul Jim Balsillie was thwarted in his attempts at bringing an American franchise to Hamilton, Ontario.

You probably could build a hockey rink in the middle of nowhere in Canada, and the team would sell out every game.

Of course, a fan base has never been the problem in Canada. The Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets did very well, thank you, drawing fans to their respective arenas.

But the problems were two-fold: both cities had antiquated buildings, and the teams didn't have enough corporate support.

That isn't necessarily the case today.

The old Winnipeg Arena, which featured perhaps the best press box view in the league and a large picture of Queen Elizabeth, has been replaced by the 15,000-plus seat MTS Centre, which opened five years ago. The American Hockey League's Manitoba Moose call the place home, and it'd be a fine place for an NHL team.

Over in Quebec City, Mayor Regis Labeaume has hired an engineering firm to conduct a feasibility study regarding a state-of-the-art arena to replace Le Colisee, once home to the Nordiques (and the best hot dogs in the NHL or any other league). The Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League now play in the arena.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, in a recent interview with the Toronto Sun, said "the door has always been open (to Canada)," adding that the league isn't planning at the moment to move any teams.

"But if we relocate or if we expand," Bettman continued, "we are going to consider all of the opportunities in Canada that should be considered, assuming people want to own franchises in any one of the possible markets."

Interestingly, Bettman has met with Mayor Labeaume, he said, "because he asked for a meeting and we were interested in what he had to say."

Said league deputy commissioner Bill Daly: "We are encouraged by the mayor's announcement on the new arena and we believe it will be a very good thing for the city of Quebec. While there are no guarantees that an NHL franchise can return, certainly a new arena will enhance those prospects significantly."

Plenty of U.S. franchises are experiencing problems on and off the ice, including Atlanta, Florida, Nashville, Phoenix and Tampa Bay.

A brand new arena is sitting in Kansas City and there supposedly are plans to build one in Las Vegas, but if any of these troubled teams have to relocate, Canadian cities ought to get first dibs.

Thrashers need to sign Kovalchuk

2009-10-21T02:23:00Z

If the Atlanta Thrashers ever hope to make serious inroads in Georgia's sporting landscape -- is it even possible to compete with the Braves, Falcons, college football and NASCAR? -- they can't afford to lose their most exciting players.

Hockey is a tough sell in the South as it is, which is why the Thrashers had better find a way to keep star left wing Ilya Kovalchuk in town. Either that, or trade him for a bushel of talent.

Of course, you might ask why the talented Russian would want to keep playing in a city that doesn't really appreciate hockey and for a team that has missed the playoffs six times in his first seven NHL seasons.

At any rate, Thrashers general manager Don Waddell, who somehow manages to hang onto his job despite the club's ineptness just about every year, is trying to sign Kovalchuk to a new contract before he becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season.

That might not be so easy, considering Kovalchuk is being paid $7.5 million in the final year of his contract, already a ton of loot for a team like the Thrashers.

The 6-foot-2, 230-pounder is an offensive force, having scored between 41 and 52 goals in each of the past five seasons. He's off to a splendid start this year, too, with seven goals in the Thrashers' first five games.

Kovalchuk is just 27, so his best years could still be ahead of him, if that's even possible.

He reportedly likes being in Atlanta -- no pressure, I suppose -- but you'd think he'd enjoy playing in a more traditional hockey city even more, especially for a team with a legitimate chance at winning the Stanley Cup.

It's still early, so Waddell does have some time to get his man re-signed. If Waddell isn't able to accomplish the feat before the March 3 NHL trading deadline, he'll need to put the big guy on the market and get what he can in a trade rather than lose him to free agency and receive nothing in return.

Trust me, there would be plenty of suitors.

Wild looking pretty mild

2009-10-19T23:03:00Z

They've got a new general manager, new coach, some new players, and they opened the season with a brutal road schedule.

The Colorado Avalanche? Well, yes, but first-year coach Joe Sacco and his troops have gotten off to a surprising 6-1-1 start and will take a four-game road winning streak into Wednesday's visit to the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn.

The Avalanche will take on the Minnesota Wild, which also has a new GM in Chuck Fletcher, new coach in Todd Richards, some new players in forwards Kyle Brodziak and Martin Havlat, and defensemen Shane Hnidy and Greg Zanon.

The Wild also has a 1-6-0 record and is coming off a disastrous five-game road trip in which it lost every game.

Maybe he wouldn't have re-signed with Wild at any price, but electric forward Marian Gaborik, who has had injury problems and was stifled under former coach Jacques Lemaire's defensive system, left as a free agent to sign a five-year, $37.5 million contract with the New York Rangers.

Gaborik is off to a torrid start with six goals and six assists in eight games. The Rangers have been equally strong with seven wins.

The Wild? Its major free agent acquisition was Havlat, who was given a six-year, $30 million deal after collecting 29 goals and 48 assists in 81 games with the Chicago Blackhawks. Havlat also had 15 points in 16 playoff games for the Hawks.

Havlat hasn't exactly gotten off to a scintillating start with the Wild. He has one goal, four assists and a minus-6 plus/minus rating. He's currently day to day with a groin strain.

Then again, usually-reliable defenseman Brent Burns is an awful -9, and fellow blue liner Nick Schultz is a minus-6.

The Wild still can't score much. Andrew Brunette has five of the team's 15 goals and no one else has more than two.

Goaltending has been a strength in the past, but not so much so far this season. Niklas Backstrom has a solid .913 save percentage to go along with a mediocre 2.82 goals-against average. Josh Harding has lost both of his decisions, and it's easy to see why. He owns a 5.50 GAA and his .738 save percentage is simply embarrassing.

Looking for a spark, Fletcher acquired gritty forward Chuck Kobasew from the Boston Bruins in exchange for minor leaguer Craig Weller, prospect Alexander Fallstrom and a second-round pick in the 2011 NHL entry draft.

Kobasew has scored between 20 and 22 goals in three of the past four seasons. He had 21 in 68 games for the Bruins a year ago. He has no goals and one assist in seven games this year and will have to start playing a lot better to make any sort of impact on this struggling squad.

Young Avs are NHL's biggest surprise

2009-10-16T07:45:00Z

So what's the deal with this young bunch of Colorado Avalanche?

Who would have thought these guys would be 5-1-1 through the season's first seven games, with a 3-1-1 record in the first five games of what could have been a disastrous seven-game road trip?

Not me, and probably not anybody else, either.

The Avalanche was coming off a last-place finish in the Western Conference; team president Pierre Lacroix fired just about everybody in the front office and coaching staff; longtime captain Joe Sakic retired; and co-scoring leader Ryan Smyth was dispatched to Los Angeles.

So much for expectations.

I know it's ridiculously early, but free-agent pickup Craig Anderson has been splendid in the crease; the Avalanche has a potent top line in Wojtek Wolski, Paul Stastny and Milan Hejduk; 14 different players already have scored goals; 18-year-old rookies -- yes, there are two -- Matt Duchene and Ryan "Radar" O'Reilly sure look like they belong; defenseman Kyle Quincey, acquired in the Smyth trade, has been a force at both ends of the ice; and the special teams have been, well, special.

The Avalanche boasts the fifth-youngest roster in the league with an average age of 27.043 years. Ten regulars, four of whom are rookies, are between the ages of 18 and 25.

No problem, apparently.

"We're a young team, but we bring a lot of energy," rookie center T.J. Galiardi, 21, said. "We're just trying to do the right things."

This team hasn't done much wrong lately, though Saturday's visit to Joe Louis Arena to face the Detroit Red Wings will be a stern test.

"You saw what happened last year and we're a lot younger team and there probably aren't high expectations," said Paul Stastny, who's in his fourth NHL season but is just 22. "We're trying to prove ourselves after last year, and we're enjoying the challenge."

The NHL hands out more hardware than any professional league on the planet, but it's too bad it doesn't present one for the best coaching job in the first month of the season.

If there was, it would go to first-year Avalanche head coach Joe Sacco.

Hands down.

Laraque in hot water over ad

2009-10-14T23:54:00Z

Georges Laraque usually gets into trouble on the ice as an enforcer with the Montreal Canadiens. The 6-f0ot-3, 253-pound right wing began his 12th NHL season this year with 52 goals and 1,098 penalty minutes in 667 career games.

Now, the 33-year-old is in hot water with the league and women's groups for appearing in a commercial for an alcohol drink that shows him playing street hockey with several scantily-clad women.

The commercial has no dialogue and can be viewed at 33mag.com.

According to Article 25.1 of the league's collective bargaining agreement: "No player shall be involved in any endorsement or sponsorship of alcoholic beverages (excluding malt-based beverages such as beer) and/or tobacco products."

Laraque told Montreal reporters that he regrets appearing in the commercial, adding that he donated the proceeds to an animal-rights group and intends to work for women's causes in the future.

Laraque said he wasn't aware of the script when he arrived for the shoot and that he agreed to appear because it offered a nice payday for charity.

"This is one more example of sexist advertising," Alexa Conradi, of
the Federation des femmes du Quebec, told The Canadian Press. "Why is it that when we're trying to market a campaign toward men aged 20 to 35, we always use this kind of ad? What does that say about our concept of masculinity?"