(Check back for Mark Spector’s weekly look around the Western Conference, Fridays at sportsnet.ca.)
It was 11 years ago this month that the Calgary Flames parted with a second-round draft pick for a 27-year-old from Turku, Finland who had been kicking around the San Jose Sharks organization for a few years. He was stuck behind Vesa Toskala and Evgeni Nabokov, but the Flames head coach and general manager — Darryl Sutter — had some inside information on this third-stringer.
Miikka Kiprusoff turned out to be, to this day, one of the great steals in hockey history. We wonder if, one day, they’ll look back at the free agent signing of Jonas Hiller along the same vein in Calgary.
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“That was a hell of a deal by Darryl,” Flames GM Brad Treliving said Thursday. “I think more people know who Jonas is today, than knew who Miikka was back then. Darryl is more of a genius than I am.”
Of course, that line was in jest. You won’t find a more humble, likeable GM in the game than Treliving, who has a team that’s punching further above its weight class than any other GM in the game today. Much of that has to do with Hiller, who insiders said Anaheim had given up on last year. So far in 2014-15, his .929 save percentage is fourth in the NHL among goalies with at least nine starts.
“We wanted to give ourselves some stability, and the best way is to do it in goal,” Treliving said. “That was no slight to Karri Ramo. We just needed to strengthen the competition for the position.”
In Hiller, Treliving saw a goalie in Anaheim who’d been very good for the first three-quarters of the year, but not as well in the stretch run and playoffs. Looking at Hiller’s 2013-14 season, he had 15 decisions in which he posted a save percentage of .890 or below.
Five of those sub-.890 performances came in his last seven decisions, which included Games 1 and 2 of the Round 2 series against Los Angeles. Hiller relieved John Gibson in the 6-2 loss in Game 7, and that was his final game for the Ducks.
“Everyone really focuses on the end of last year,” Treliving said. “But when you looked at it, he was very good for three-quarters of the year. We also thought we could capitalize in a down market. There wasn’t a bunch of teams in on goalies last year. We thought, this could turn out to be a value signing.”
The next big signing in Calgary? Undoubtedly head coach Bob Hartley, who is on the final year of his contract. The coach and GM barely knew each other when Treliving was hired, but it would be an understatement to say Treliving likes what he has seen.
“I’ve been really impressed with Bob. Not just the record, but the preparation, the detail. He pushes, but in a way that teaches. I’ve been really impressed with him.”
Hartley has re-invented himself here. We’ll predict he gets a new deal from the Flames before New Year’s Eve.
• Diving protocol has been changed this season, with repeated divers being hit with incremental fines and coaches fined as well if the player persists. For now, divers have received a warning from the Department of Player Safety that their actions will lead to fines. Starting mid-month, warnings will cease and the fines will begin.
• One more note on diving, there was some irony in Vancouver last week when Alex Burrows’ head shot on Alexei Emelin went unpenalized and the Canucks scored seconds later. Burrows has cleaned up his act now, but after years of not being able to buy a call because of his own reputation for diving, it was Burrows who benefitted from Emelin not getting a call because of his rep with the zebras.
If the referees that night — Ian Walsh and Brian Pochmara — would have clearly seen the infraction that led to Burrows’ three-game suspension, they would have whistled a penalty. But having seen only the aftermath, Emelin down, possibly injured, the Montreal defenceman’s reputation came into play. And Burrows benefitted. I guess what goes around DOES come around.
• The quiet concern in St. Louis, as the Blues went out in Round 1 last spring for the second consecutive season, was if David Backes was enough at first line centre. So they added Paul Stastny, and now Jori Lehtera has emerged as a pretty good centre as well. We wonder if, at age 30 but still a strapping 6-foot-3, 221 pounds, Backes doesn’t find his best team success as a second-line centre who takes faceoffs and checks the Jonathan Toews’ and Tyler Seguins of the Central Division.
• When a team goes from 29th in the NHL in 2012-13, to third overall last year as the Colorado Avalanche did, it’s not surprising to see water find its level in Year 3 of the experiment. But the Avs have plummeted back down to 22nd spot with a 4-6-5 mark and scouts are seeing three reasons why: No Paul Stastny in the middle; a defensive core that played way above its head last season has come back to earth: and Gabriel Landeskog, who had 30 assists as a rookie and 39 helpers last season, has two assists in his first 15 games.
• Ben Eager’s career continues on the downslide. Originally the 23rd overall pick by Phoenix in 2002, Eager, 30, ran through five different NHL teams before the free agent offers stopped coming in this past summer. Now he’s in the KHL with CSKA — Moscow Red Army — struggling mightily just to get into games. CSKA is second in the West behind Ilya Kovalchuk and St. Petersburg, with 19 wins in 25 games. Eager has played in just five games with zero points, averaging just over 5:00 of ice time on a team that includes former NHLers Alex Radulov and Evgeny Artyukhin.
• The L.A. Kings are 6-1-1 at home, but just 1-3-2 on the road. L.A. has never been a team that excels offensively during the regular season, but so far this season they’ve left their goal scoring sticks at home. Only Florida and Buffalo have scored less on the road than the Kings’ average of 1.8 goals per game and L.A. has scored just one power play goal on the road in 19 attempts.
“We’ve got 14 guys with zero or one goal. Do the math,” head coach Darryl Sutter told the L.A. Times’ Lisa Dillman recently. “It’s not like they’ve lost it. It’s not like they are over the hill or anything like that. It’s still a little bit of guys grasping on to, coming off winning, I believe. I think they have to get that sense of urgency a little bit in their games still.”
• Still with the Kings, Slava Voynov missed his eighth game Thursday, and his agent told the Times Thursday afternoon that he will seek reinstatement. “There comes a point where the player’s rights have to be looked at,” said agent Rolland Hedges. “From this point forward, the player is going to see what can be done to have the suspension lifted. The player has no control over the criminal prosecution at this point, nor should he.”
No charges have been laid yet, as prosecutors continue to investigate.
“I think his rights are being infringed right now. That’s the unfortunate part of this process,” Hedges said.
• Theoren Fleury weighed in on Johnny Gaudreau this week, in a conversation with the Calgary Herald’s George Johnson:
“I mean, how can you not be cheering for him? He’s the most talked about player the Flames have had in a long time, right?” Fleury said. “He’s got people excited again. He’s fun to watch. And the Flames are fun to watch. Keep it coming.”
• Just when you thought the goalie controversies were dead in Vancouver, Canucks farmhand goalie Jacob Markstrom was named American Hockey League goalie of month for October, going 4-0-1 with a 0.99 goals-against average, .963 save percentage and three consecutive shutouts for Utica. Eddie Lack (.874 with a 4.19 GAA) has been average thus far as Ryan Miller’s backup in Vancouver.
