The legit No. 1 defenceman. He has become the most valuable commodity in the National Hockey League – even more rare than a true No. 1 goalie, in these books.
Think about it: There are 30 teams, but how many true No. 1s are there? Guys who can play 28 minutes, quarterback a power play, kill a penalty and play in any situation.
You can do the math for yourself on how many of those players there are, but here’s my list (in no particular order): Duncan Keith, Drew Doughty, Erik Karlsson, P.K. Subban, Ryan Suter, Shea Weber, Victor Hedman, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Dustin Byfuglien, T.J. Brodie, Alex Pietrangelo, Kris Letang and Justin Faulk. Maybe Aaron Ekblad is there (he will be soon), and I’m not sure Mark Giordano’s season has taken him out of that group quite yet.
Whatever the number was at the beginning of this season, you can add one more name to the list. John Klingberg in Dallas.
“He’s a kid I can put on the ice in any situation. It’s not about the offensive numbers. If he can’t play defence, he can’t play. And he can play defence,” said Dallas head coach Lindy Ruff. “He does stuff that … I just say, ‘You can’t teach that.’ He has that ability to make special plays when the game’s on the line. Finding the right outlet, he’s got incredible vision and he’s a great skater.”
At age 23, Klingberg went into play Friday night as the NHL’s sixth leading point getter (5-22-27). He hasn’t even played 100 NHL games yet and he’s already become the top D-man on the NHL’s most potent offensive club.
Did he expect these kinds of points in his sophomore season?
“No, I did not. Of course,” he said. “I play with a good team, and there are chances to join the rush. I didn’t expect to have this many points though.”
He is just another in that large group of Swedish defenceman that are taking over the NHL. All raised with posters Nicklas Lidstrom on their bedroom walls, right?
Wrong. Actually, his favorite player growing up was …
“Peter Forsberg,” he said. “I was a forward growing up, until I was 14, then I switched to D. Then, Nicklas Lidstrom and Erick Karlsson is who I watched.
“My dad and my granddad thought (defence) was fitting me better. See the ice, get more pucks and create those passes. Obviously, a good choice by them. As soon as I played it, I liked it. You’re 14, and you want to keep scoring those goals, you know?”
He’s a bit of a string bean right now at 6-foot-2, 180 lbs. But with the 131st pick in the 2010 draft — the lottery that gave us Tyler Seguin and Taylor Hall — Klingberg might one day turn out to be the most valuable of them all.
REALITY WEST
I personally didn’t have the Vancouver Canucks as a playoff team this season, though I still thought they’d be the best team west of Winnipeg. What no one saw coming however, was that the Sedins would still — after all these years — be carrying the team the way they have this season.
At age 35, the twins are 1-2 on the Canucks in goals, assists, points, power-play goals, power-play points, and time on ice (among forwards). And now, with second-line centre Brandon Sutter’s recent sports hernia surgery, Canucks GM Jim Benning is seeing the evidence of an organization that hasn’t drafted well enough.
“We’ve got this older group … that they’ve had success with over the years,” Benning told Vancouver reporters this week. “These guys are signed to (long-term) contracts and there was a stretch there, because they had good teams, maybe we didn’t develop players as we should have or draft as good as we should have.
“It is what it is. We have to develop the next group of core players and we want to be competitive. That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
It’s never been more clear than it is in today’s NHL. If you don’t draft and develop, you don’t have prolonged success. Period.
WORLD WHA…?
Did a double take when I noticed the banner that is accompanying the current Stanley Cup tour, on a tweet by Phil Pritchard. It hailed the champion Chicago Blackhawks as “World Champions.” Last we checked, the Blackhawks never played a team from outside the U.S.A. on their way to winning the Cup, did they?
It’s the American way, to refer to the Super Bowl or World Series champ as “World Champions” despite the fact that only teams from the U.S. — and sometimes Canada — are competing for the trophy. We’d laugh at SKA St. Petersburg, last year’s KHL champs, if they called themselves “World Champions.”
It’s a bad trend that reminds of the old FOX glowing puck — for people who don’t know what the Stanley Cup champ is, maybe they’ll understand it better this way. Yecch.
DOUBLE FINNED APPROACH
It was Detroit GM Ken Holland whose theory was never to spend too much on goaltending, but the Stars are taking the opposite approach. They’ve got the most expensive tandem in the NHL at $10.4 million, with incumbent Kari Lehtonen and free agent pick-up Antti Niemi — two vets who are enjoying a little playing time and a lot more time to work on their craft at practice.
“They’re good friends. Before we did it (they discovered) they’d played together in Finland when they were 10 years old,” Stars GM Jim Nill told Sportsnet. “Neither one has ever had practice time during the season. They’ve always been 70-game guys for their teams. It’s worked out well for us.”
Dallas is middle-of-the-pack, ranked 14th in goals against per game (2.58), and their team save percentage of .911 really doesn’t scream great goaltending. But Lehtonen has always struggled with consistency. In my opinion, you could never trust him, long-term, to stay healthy and maintain his top level.
But Niemi’s arrival has cut Lehtonen’s workload way down, and he’s playing better.
MULLIGAN IN THE DESERT
When good goalies have bad years, their teams are generally hopeful it’s a one-year slump, and are happy to give them an opportunity to re-establish themselves as the team’s No. 1. Mike Smith in Arizona is a prime example of that.
When they come back the next year, however, and begin to show the same traits as the failed season the year before, patience diminishes rapidly. The question in Arizona today is, does Coyotes head coach Dave Tippett fit that description when it comes to Smith?
After pulling Smith from six games during a brutal campaign for the big goalie last season, Tippett has already had the hook out four times this season. The latest, Thursday in Detroit, came when Smith allowed goals at 19:18 and 19:36 of the first period, the latter a bouncer from centre ice off a dump-in by Gustav Nyquist.
Arizona’s hot start is beginning to dissipate. If Smith’s game falls apart again, they’ll find themselves with an excellent shot at Arizona native Auston Matthews at the June draft.
ABUSING THE VOTE
John Scott to the all-star game? Seriously? He wouldn’t get a shift of 4-on-4 hockey on his team, the Coyotes, let alone take a regular shift of 3-on-3 with the NHL’s best under the new all-star format.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Scott told reporters in Detroit this week, as he sat atop the voting as the one Pacific Division player to be voted in by the fans. “The guys are giving me a hard time about it, but it’s kind of neat. The fans, they obviously like me for some reason. I think it’s more of a joke than anything, but I’ll take it.”
It’s a joke all right. And you can bet, the league isn’t laughing. The last thing the NHL needs is for people to make a further joke of their all-star game, which has enough issues on its own.
In this day of cyber activity, allowing online votes by fans is an invitation for something like this to happen. My bet is the fans that are making this happen will cost every fan their right to vote on next year’s game.
