Spare Change

February 14th, 2008

A lot of things have happened in sports since I last wrote (I was felled by illness last week, I'm guessing SARS), so I'm offering up a grab bag of thoughts, musings and rants.

For What it's Worth: $93.45-The Lethbridge Hurricanes are getting down right offensive...but not in a Howard Stern or Oprah Winfrey kind of way.

We all make New Year's resolutions, and I'm guessing the Hurricanes resolved to keep goal judges busy around the Western Hockey League. Since the start of 2008, Michael Dyck's crew has played 17 games, going 12-2-1-2. The club has piled up 70 goals over that span. In their last 9 contests, the ‘Canes have had two 9 goal games, one 8 goal effort and most recently spanked Kootenay 7-1.

The team is up to 195 goals on the season, now fourth in the WHL's Eastern Conference. The Hurricanes have a balanced attack, with four players on pace for 30+ goals: Mitch Fadden (28), Dwight King (26), Zach Boychuk (25), and Colton Sceviour (24). 1997 was the last time the team boasted four or more 30-goal men, Shane Willis (56), Byron Ritchie (50), Travis Brigley (43), Kirby Law (39), and Mike Josephson (32). That club just happened to win the ‘Canes first and only WHL Championship.

Another good sign is the Hurricanes power play has come to life. Mired among the bottom third in the Dub for most of the season, the team is 16-63 in its last 10 games with the man advantage, a sparkling 25.4% clip.

Heading into the 2007-'08 campaign, many believed the ‘Canes would be one of the WHL's top scoring teams. In the first half the club wasn't bad offensively, but now it's firing on all cylinders. Combining with a strong defensive game, the Hurricanes are dominating on both ends of the rink.

FWIW: $76.89-Cliff Fletcher was a bad choice by the Toronto Maple Leafs to lead their rebuilding project.

A couple of weeks have passed since the Toronto Maple Leafs fired John Ferguson Jr. as General Manager, replacing him, on an interim basis, with the "Silver Fox" Cliff Fletcher. Leafs Nation looks back on Fletcher's first run as GM with the club fondly. The high point came in losing back-to-back Western Conference finals in 1993 and '94 (if losing in the conference championship finals is really a highlight).

So it's back to the future for the Buds, handing the reins over to Fletcher once again. Toronto is in need of a massive rebuild, and I'm stupefied that Fletcher was tabbed to begin the task. Make no mistake, the Hall of Famer was--was--a fine GM. But his legacy with the Leafs is actually part of the organization's problem today.

Fletcher began his first run in T.O. in 1991. He then left the club six seasons later. While the 72 year old is most remembered for fleecing Calgary in a trade for Doug Gilmour (seriously Doug Risebrough, Gary Leeman????), his drafts were down right horrible. The Leafs should have at least a few impact players still on the roster from the lotteries Fletcher led. However, that's simply not the case.

Thanks to Hockeydb.com here's a look at the Leafs' drafts under Fletcher. The number in parentheses is the player's draft position. (Cliff was hired on July 2^nd, 1991, a couple weeks after the '91 draft-which sucked as well).

1992: Brandon Convery (8), Grant Marshall (23), Nikolai Borchevsky (77), Mark Raiter (95), Janne Gronvall (101), Chris DeRuiter (106), Mikael Hakansson (125), Patrik Augusta (149), Ryan VandenBussche (173), Wayne Clarke (197), Sergei Simonov (221), Nathan Dempsey (245)

1993: Kenny Jonsson (12), Landon Wilson (19), Zdenek Nedved (123), Paul Vincent (149), Jeff Andrews (175), David Brumby (201), Kyle Ferguson (253), Mikhail Lapin (279)

1994: Eric Fichaud (16), Sean Haggarty (48), Fredrik Modin (64), Mark Deyell (126), Kam White (152), Tomi Rajamaki (178), Rob Butler (204), Sergei Berezin (254), Doug Nolan (282)

1995: Jeff Ware (15), Ryan Pepperall (54), Doug Bonner (139), Yannick Tremblay (145), Marek Melenovsky (171), Mark Murphy (197), Danil Markov (223)

1996: Marek Posmyk (36), Francis Larivee (50), Mike Lankshear (66), Konstatin Kalmikov (68), Jason Sessa (86), Vladimir Antipov (103), Peter Cava (110), Brandon Sugden (111), Dmitry Yakushin (140), Chris Bogas (148), Lucio DiMartinis (151), Reggie Berg (178), Tomas Kaberle (204), Jared Hope 230

There's just one all-star in 50 picks (Tomas Kaberle) over 5 drafts. In fact, only 12 of these guys actually played over 100 NHL games (most just barely). There's 3, 30-goal scorers (Borchevsky, Modin-with Tampa Bay, and Berezin). How about the first rounders? Brandon Convery, Grant Marshall, Kenny Jonsson, Eric Fichaud, and Jeff Ware. I guess Jonsson was above average in his 10 NHL seasons. Marshall was a nice 3^rd liner in Dallas, Columbus and New Jersey in his 12 big-league campaigns.

All in all, it's a poor performance. And I doubt Fletcher's better now nearly 20 years later. Maybe he can move Mats Sundin and Bryan McCabe (ha!) for a boatload of prospects and get the organization headed in the right direction. All I know is if I'm a Leafs fan I'm less than thrilled with the direction of the team. But it's not like Maple Leaf Sports Entertainment is getting any smarter...

FWIW: $92.10-The NBA...its' Trade-tastic!!

What's going on in the National Basketball Association? In a league not known for trades in recent times, there's more wheeling and dealing going on than the ol' church flea market.

It started in the off-season when Boston acquired Kevin Garnett from Minnesota and Ray Allen from Seattle. Those moves were an obvious response to New York trading for Zach Randolph from Portland (yes, I was giggling while writing that).

Now the Western Conference is getting in on the act this week. The Los Angeles Lakers stole Pau Gasol from Memphis for pretty much nothing. Phoenix goes off the deep end acquiring the player formerly known as Shaquille O'Neal from Miami for Shawn Marion. Now it's reported Dallas is scooping Jason Kidd from New Jersey for Devin Harris and others.

By my count, that's 4 or 5 hall-of-famers on the move. A lot of big name all-star types finding themselves in new colours. It's great for NBA fans to dissect these trades, and there's a lot of second-guessing going on outside of Boston and Los Angeles. While it makes for big headlines, in the end, only one of these clubs will lift the Larry O'Brien trophy in June.

Well that's all for now...try not to get the SARS, or the Avian Flu, or the mumps, or the malaria...there's a lot of it going around.