How I'd rebuild the Blue Jackets

Note: this is 100 PERCENT stream of consciousness. If there are fact errors, spelling mistakes, weird leaps of logic, well ... sorry but I'm not sorry. I'd love to hear feedback on the ideas though.

I wasn't too hard on Scott Howson in my initial assessment of the Jeff Carter-Jack Johnson trade for the simple reason that Jeff Carter's sad panda routine backed Howson into a pretty bad corner.

Since this is CLS and not PHT, I'm not going to go into agonizing detail to recap everything, but Howson turned Antoine Vermette and Carter into a solid set of picks. It got me thinking about the future of this franchise and how fun it would be to rebuild it.

I use the word fun because a) it engages my inner team-building nerd and b) the franchise is so horrific that you'd be playing with house money.

Most people would identify Steve Mason's disastrous situation as the biggest problem, but some Twitter convos spawned this horrifying realization that the Blue Jackets have this set of poor-to-flawed defensemen wrapped up for WAY too long.

The Blue Jackets defensive core: James Wisniewski ($5.5M til 2016-17), Jack Johnson ($4.3M; 17-18), Methot ($3M; 14-15) and Tyutin ($4.5; 17-18).

So that's just under $18 million for two gambling offensive defensemen and two mainly nondescript guys.

Let's start with the trade deadline, then.

Rick Nash trade

Instead of focusing on what the Blue Jackets should get for Nash, Howson should focus on cleaning up his massacre on defense. Granted, it's pretty tough to imagine a team taking on more than 12 million for Nash + Tyutin, but that's what I would want.

As much as I hate Wisniewski's deal, Tyutin's contract is borderline unconscionable.

With that in mind, it might be more likely to make such a move in the off-season, especially if the CBA doesn't blow up and the salary cap rises again.

Interesting idea: work out a deal with Philly that sends, say, JVR, Chris Pronger's scrambled eggs/dead contract space, Braydon Coburn and perhaps a pick for Nash and Tyutin.

Coburn would likely be the best semi-sorta-jeez-I-guess responsible defenseman on the team, Pronger could help the Blue Jackets get to the cap floor and JVR would help to soothe some of that Nash grief, even if he's pretty damn inconsistent.

(Damn, that almost sounds kinda reasonable right? I'd say getting Pronger off Philly's hands would be enticing and Tyutin could at least be a warm body.)

***

After that, I would:

1. Fire the bejesus out of Scott Howson.

2. Hire Rick Dudley.

Dudley's firing was pure horse shit. He actually made some interesting moves for the Atlanta Thrashers and seems to have a keen eye on drafting talent.

3. Hire a capologist

That being said, hockey teams need to Moneyball it. Dudley doesn't get to add a contract unless it makes sense (not saying Dudley wastes money, just saying that EVERYONE does).

4. Hire Craig Ramsay

Make fun all you want, but Ramsay got a piss-poor Thrashers team fairly close to a playoff run.

Oh yeah, and remember how many people snickered when they opted to move Dustin Byfuglien to defense again? Yeah, he's a two time All-Star, suckers.

That's not the only reason I'd hire Ramsay, either. If you look at the Jets/Thrashers, the biggest strengths they had were in attacking defense. I don't care if you bring back Jacques Lemaire, you won't teach Wisniewski and Johnson to be great in their end. So why not let them loose with a guy who made the most of a similar situation?

5. Pay Lemaire a lot of money as a consultant

Hell, why not overpay him to teach them as much as he can/give yourself a fallback plan if Ramsay's terrible, then? Again, Columbus' greatest assets are in defense right now - and that will only become more true if they trade Nash.

6. Keep Steve Mason - so you can lose.

6b. If he plays well, trade him.

He has another year on his deal anyway, so let him get shellacked behind a horribly irresponsible defense.

Of course, it's a contract year, so maybe he'd actually play well. Don't be fooled by that horse shit, though. If he plays out of his mind, trade him for assets. You know why?

7. Because it's time to tank.

The Blue Jackets are primed for a lottery pick, if not the No. 1 pick. They also will get a first round pick from Los Angeles in 2012 or 2013 - not to mention maybe another goodie for Nash and some other pieces from Vermette.

So why not just really, really suck next season too and embrace the Capitals/Blackhawks/Penguins plan?

Proactive rebuttal

Now, I know you'll quibble about two things:

A) Finances

Tanking will only make things worse at the box office, no doubt. Let's not ignore reality, though: the Blue Jackets are going to be bad again, so why take a half measure when you can set yourself up for a bright future?

(Even if that bright future isn't in Ohio.)

Besides, a cheaper team will at least mean less money spent, and maybe the NHL's next CBA will be easier on poor franchises cap floor-wise.

B) Draft history

"But the Blue Jackets have had high draft picks forever and they still sucked"

Yeah, but that's because of incompetent management. Like I said, Rick Dudley's a proven entity at identifying talent, so they'd have a MUCH better chance of striking gold.

I don't know about the 2013 draft, but I've heard the 2012 one is great. The sad truth is that getting the right pick in the right year can often mean everything. (I like John Tavares and Taylor Hall, but their franchises didn't get a Stamkos or Crosby - sometimes you have to get lucky.)

***

OK, so my plan might not be fool-proof and it's literally off the top of my head. So tell me what you think.

A fool-proof guide to make the All-Star Game slightly interesting

Look, you're never going to make All-Star games matter the way they did back in their heydays.

Still, after noting the mute Ottawa crowd today, I thought there must be some way to add a little bit of sexiness to the event. I've made some of these points before - probably in more than one outlet - but this seems like a good time to bang that drum again. With that, here's my fool-proof guide to make the All-Star Game slightly interesting.

Striking while the iron is hot

Every league seems to schedule these events when the market is already saturated with their product. No one gives a damn about exhibitions like these in the middle of playoff races in the MLB, NHL and NBA. The NFL's Pro Bowl suffers from an almost laughable disparity in intensity from brutal postseason games to that exhibition. (Seriously, the Super Bowl has its work cut out for it following conference finals ... how can a bloodless event hope to compete?)

So, my question is: why not hold these events when people are dying for it?

If you held the NHL All-Star Game a week before the season starts, it would be a way to feed those who have been famished from hockey after a long summer. It would be a big welcome back for players and we could catch up on what they did over the break. Everyone would be tanner and flabbier and generally fresher. By scheduling it around training camp, people would already be around.

Oh yeah, it would also be a nice way to say, "Hey, the season's about to start!"

(Sure, there might be some players who skip the event because it's before the season, but I'd bet it would be a little bit less frequent than the in-season bumps and bruises.)

Yes, players might be rusty, but they shouldn't be exhausted. If you gave the NHL a "spring break" where everyone gets 2-4 days off when the All-Star Game would have happened, then you'd really be onto something.

Champs vs. All-Stars

One really cool wrinkle to the pre-season idea: you'd have the hindsight of a full season. That would be a more realistic representation of who the All-Stars would be, but better yet, we'd know who won the Stanley Cup.

And wouldn't it be cool to give those champions a "last hurrah" in a salary cap age when most teams not named the Boston Bruins or Detroit Red Wings lose significant guys after winning it all?

You could schedule the All-Star Game in the winning city and have that team unveil it's banner on national television. Imagine how cool it would be for the disassembled 2010 Cup-winning Chicago Blackhawks to get one more game together before splitting up? There would be times when it could get downright emotional. Picture, for a second, Mark Recchi playing his final NHL contest in the All-Star Game after a tearful pre-game ceremony.

Even beyond the tugging-on-the-heart-strings stuff, a defending champion would have a chip on its shoulder and built-in chemistry. There would be plenty of guys who never imagined participating in an All-Star Game in their careers.

I'd say the only time the Ottawa crowd cared today was when Senators did something well, so you know what would keep an audience involved? The ups and downs of their own team trying to beat a group of All-Stars.

It would be as close to awesome as these things can get.

Alternate ideas

If you're not going to change the system, at least make logical tweaks. The No. 1 thing for me is to make sure that you spotlight the most interesting people - not the best players or nicest guys.

The 2012 Fantasy Draft was bland because they went with Zdeno Chara and Daniel Alfredsson as captains, who brought a rice cake flavor to the event. If you're going to do it, have wacky guys like Scott Hartnell, Patrick Kane (yes, again), Tim Thomas and so on pick the teams. This year's version was all about not offending friends and teammates, which is as boring as it gets.

***

Yes, it's not that big of a deal that the All-Star Game is milquetoast, but why not make it better if you can? What would you do to make it better?

Lambs to the Slaughter: Comparing the 2011-12 Isles to the 2000-01 Leafs

(This bit is too obscure [I think] for PHT, so I thought I'd plop it here.)

I've already compared Sidney Crosby's comeback to the one Mario Lemieux made back from retirement, but there's no doubt that they aren't perfect parallels. Crosby is much, much younger than Lemieux was and aside from an in-his-prime Jaromir Jagr, Lemieux didn't have anywhere near the team around him.

But the biggest difference is that New York Islanders are way worse than the 2000-01 Toronto Maple Leafs were. Allow me to compare and contrast the situations just a little bit:

• The Maple Leafs trotted out borderline Hall of Famer Curtis Joseph as their goalie. The Islanders have Anders Nilsson in net. Yeah, that's a pretty huge difference.

• Toronto had a (woefully convoluted) 18-12-4-3 record going into their automatic loss; the Islanders are likely to drop to 5-10-3.

• The Leafs had Pat Quinn as their coach while the Isles employ Jack Capuano, who might just make it through his first full NHL season. Maybe.

• Marc-Andre Fleury is just a liiiitttttllllle better than Garth Snow, who probably isn't smiling now that he's on the wrong end of a famous Penguins center's comeback.

So, yes, Crosby already tied Lemieux's one-goal, two-assist performance, but it's probably fair to say that their efforts (and magic) are about equal.

Matt Cooke pie chart

Click to enlarge it yo.

Rankin's (temporary spot while Joomla! gives me fits)

So, Bloguin NHL is coming out with its Power Rankings ... which means that it's time for dumb stat-based fun! Hooray! (Throws confetti alone in a basement)*

* By the way, I've found that there are two groups of people who really get beat up by writers/tooshie-heads in general: "bloggers writing in their mother's basement" and "pimply faced teens." Any time a blogger or teen must be disparaged, they are disparaged in this exact way. It's like some form of cliche facism.

To mix things up, I decided to use a different "formula" to come up with the Power Rankings. Thankfully, for me, this formula still involved no critical thinking on my part. Unfortunately, I had to look at numbers and a spreadsheet. Blogging sucks, brah.

After the jump, CANDY and BOOBIES.

(OK, now imagine that you just clicked a Read More! link and were expecting Reese's peanut butter cups and D-cups ...)

John Candy ...

... and Boobie Miles!

HA! Suckers!

Anyway, here's the dopey formula for this edition of the Power Rankings.

Ingredient One: 5 on 5 scoring (For minus Against)

Sure, special teams are important, but great teams win in normal situations. At least that's what some fat guy who smells like cheese* once told me.

* - This has never happened.**

** - Also, fat guys who smell like cheese are much like bloggers living in basements and acne-addled kids. So we're all hypocrites, really.

Ingredient Two: Goals scored per game minus Goals against per game

Really, just to throw another number in there.

Ingredient Three: Road Wins minus Home Losses

I think a team that can break even or better on the road, yet protects their house like a dude wearing overpriced underwear is usually a team that will do well in the playoffs.

Add them all together and you have the totals for this edition of the Power Rankings.

***

I'm feeling kind of lazy, so I'm going to just throw up the spreadsheet tonight and then give you a nice, bold-faced list of the the ranked teams on Wednesday. Maybe.

(Not satisfied? What if I told you that there will be pithy comments? Ohhhh, now you're ripe!)

Anyway, here's what geography kids would call a "key."

The bold columns are the sums, so "5 on 5" is the result of a team's 5 on 5 goals for minus against. Diff/G refers to a team's goal differential, per game. Tough W is simply Road Wins minus Home Losses. Add 'em all up and you get the power rankings, or PR. PR is so important that it's in bold, it's highlighted AND FUCKING UNDERLINED! Holy shit!

I think this list shows which teams are imbalanced (home dependent or PP dependent), which teams are resilient (lots of road W's) and who might be built for a long playoff run.

Like I said, the following list will be translated into English tomorrow.

(But don't think I've forgotten about my other goober stats. I won't let you off that easily, already departed public. You WILL adopt special teams plus/minus, even if it kills your whole family.)

We've Moved!

CLS is now a member of the Bloguin team.

Our permanent home is at http://www.cyclelikethesedins.com. Along with our new home, we also have a spiffy new logo. So please update your bookmarks and RSS feeds. If you want to be really nice, you could even leave a comment on the new blog!

Hope to see you there ...

http://www.cyclelikethesedins.com

The RSS feed

Link Surfing In The Pacific Division

ARTHUR:
This is Arthur from Anaheim Calling. I never cleared a day or schedule with Gray from Couch Tarts (now at Bloguin), so you may be getting a double dose of the Pac today.

San Jose
First, I refer you to the Couch Tarts post on last night's game with the Stars. The letdown is emblematic of the Sharks season so far. The team is definitely on top of a competitive division, but they look far more mortal than the squad that came roaring out of the gates last year. (Also, I take credit for this win, as I benched Turco on my fantasy team, thus thoroughly jinxing San Jose's sticks for the final stanzas of the game).

Los Angeles
The Royal Half muses on a guaranteed win for the Kings, though there seem to be a lot more of those this season.

Dallas
Scott Glennie talked to Brandon of Defending Big D this week. He's the future of pure scoring in the Pacific Division.

Phoenix
I'm not ashamed to say that I don't know what's happening with the Coyotes, despite the fact that the Desert Dogs were the Ducks' opponents on each of the last two Saturdays, and despite the fact that James Wisniewski controversially Manny-Pacquiao'd Shane Doan in that first meeting. I know this is two weeks old, but I have no links, just this:

Every time I see the video above, I swear I hear Marv Albert saying Boom-shakalaka. I enjoy it only because I remember this video:



Anaheim
The Ducks are on fire sale watch right now, beset by rumors of players headed out the door for little more than a change of locker room scenery. And much of this week's smoke damage came from Giguere, who threw a few heavy quotes to diligent and diligently under-appreciated beat writer J.P. Hoornstra of the LA Daily News. Giguere clarified everything later, but damage has certainly been done.

Anaheim fans are doing a bit of trainspotting these days, but instead of cars, we're watching passengers. Who's coming? Chris Higgins? Vesa Toskala? Who's going? Jiggy? Hiller? Niedermayer? Coach Carlyle? And now that Ducks owner Henry Samueli is back, what are the chances he fires Bob Murray, the only guy who insists nobody's going anywhere?