(+2 rating, 2 votes)
Loading ...Those of you who know me know that I have high hopes for the Southeast every season. I want them to be a competitive division, rather than a clone of the Central. I’m not talking “competitive with each other”, I’m talking “competitive with the rest of the League”. I’d love to see all five SE teams in the playoffs–if for no other reason than that it would royally piss off the rest of the League, especially if one of those five teams wound up winning the Cup. It’s a big-picture thing for me. I want this division to be good and competitive for a long, long time so that they can get out of being perceived as a latter-day Norris division.
Carolina: Doing their best to stay competitive (and if only they’d played in the middle of the season the way they’ve played since February, then the fans wouldn’t be scarfing TUMS like it’s going out of style now). Extremely stable environment, which is good but also makes it tricky in terms of team chemistry–sometimes things are too stable for the team’s collective good, which leads to complacency (and debacles like the one that existed from November through January).
Washington: Doing their best to be competitive–though in fairness, they’ve been doing that with varying degrees of success for several years now. Now GMGM has somebody that he actually can build a team around, a cat who wants to stay in Washington and (more importantly) is willing to work to win, and in the long term that will reap dividends for the Caps. Stable environment, despite the occasional bit of coaching turmoil.
Florida: They’ve got the potential in place–at least, as long as ownership doesn’t keep hiring Mike freaking Keenan every three or four years or so to destabilize things and ruin whatever progress may have been achieved since the last time he ran roughshod over them. And as long as they stop whining about Carolina’s constantly mugging them for their lunch money.
Tampa: Give this team a coach who is not a petty tinpot dictator like Fidel Tortorella, and they will start to get back to where they once belonged–this situation is still in flux, but I think that once the ownership change happens (and Feaster and Tortorella are gone) things will settle down and head back upwards…as long as Doug MacLean isn’t allowed to sit in the GM’s office or get behind the bench.
And then we have the Atlanta Thrashers. Oh, they had a good season last year. But that’s it. The doormats of the Southeast, yet again. So they’re stable–but not in the good way.
The more I watch the Atlanta Thrashers, the more I wonder how in the Nine Worlds that pitiful milquetoast Don Waddell has a job…and then I read comments like these from Atlanta’s braintrust ownership:
“Mistakes have been made and really good decisions have also been made. I think that this franchise is moving in the right direction.”
“It’s easy to point a finger (at Waddell) and say this is the source of all the problems. It’s always more complicated than that. It would be foolish and short-sighted to tear it down.”
“I think we know how to sign free agents. Does every free agent work out? Gosh no.”
(comments courtesy the News and Observer)
“Mistakes have been made”–yeah, like drafting Patrik Stefan (though in Waddell’s weak defence, the Draft that year was pretty sux0r). “…really good decisions have also been made.” Yeah, like…umm…err…uhh…yeah. Excuses, excuses, excuses. And things are only getting worse. Don Waddell, a man that I have absolutely zero confidence in, isn’t even bothering to ice a winning team. Friday night? The man got bitched at by Mark Recchi, who interrupted a bench-side tirade from Waddell to say (and I rewound the DVR to make sure I read Rexy’s lips right): “What the fuck are you doing?! Get somebody out on the ice!” Not even Paul Maurice would take that from one of his players, no matter how well-deserved it is.
The man has not just lost his mojo, he had none to begin with as he showed to the world with the roster he iced for the 2006 Olympic games in Turin (a roster about which I commented, back in 2005). With questionable drafting and a few even more questionable trades and signings (not to mention the man’s questionable attempts at coaching), the man’s doing the same thing to Atlanta that Doug MacLean tried to do to Columbus: running it into the ground.
Say what you will about Bob Hartley–yes, his Thrashers were cheap and dirty (and, as Friday night proved, they still are cheap and dirty), but at least the man got them to the playoffs. That Waddell allowed that team to so flagrantly turf their coach rather than sending a message by trading one of the ringleaders *coughHOLIKcough* shows just how he has lost this team and how he needs to be sent packing ASAP.
Of course, that will never happen as long as Atlanta Spirit keeps its collective head in the sand and continues to think that everything is fine in Blueland. My heart breaks for the Thrashers fans–they’re decent enough folks, they deserve far far better than what they’re getting.
Hurricanes take on the Capitals at the Phone Booth tomorrow night in a no-holds-barred deathmatch for the Southeast Division title. Puck drops at 7:00 PM.
Your take on things in the southeast is right on the mark, IMO. I’m also sick of being in the “you suck” division (and this season the label fits, unfortunately). I think that the traditionalist hockeyheads who think that hockey only belongs in places where you can play on an outdoor pond each winter could use the forced change of perspective that you describe.
The players here find themselves in a good climate, a nice area, and without the media forcing a microscope up where it doesn’t belong. The pressures here are entirely different. Though the factors I’ve mentioned aren’t entirely bad (a player can “just play” - which many love), it does lead to complacency in some. In our case JR/Lavi kept upping the ante until the team took notice. I think that’s usually the best remedy. The fact that we got some great talent in the bargain speaks volumes about our leadership.
Hockey has always been and will always be my favorite sport. I’m one of the few natives around here over 30 that can say that honestly. Thanks for speaking up for the fans, and for the sport as well. I’ll keep reading.
Thanks for the comment, Louie. Glad to have you on board.
The tricky thing about playing in the markets in the Southeast is, in my opinion, that because there is little to no external pressure all pressure on the team has to come from within. Teams have to be willing to kick themselves in the head when they need it, because rarely will their markets’ mediots do it (except for Luke DeCock, possibly the best beat reporter we’ve ever had covering the Hurricanes).
Case in point: Damien Cristodero, the Lightning beat reporter at the St. Pete Times–he is possibly the biggest homer in the Division. To him, the Lightning collectively walk on water and piss ginger ale, and reading his columns is aggravating because he’s all “sunshine and sugar trees” and rarely if ever does he take the players or coaches to task for anything.
The teams in this division don’t need blind homer mediots like that. They need more guys like Luke, who’s been known to drop the hammer squarely on the collective head of the Hurricanes when they’ve made questionable decisions or when they’re playing like dogs.
Washington and Carolina seem to be the only two teams in the Division that honestly give a damn about actually getting and staying good–which in the grand scheme of things is a tragedy, because really? The sooner the whole division gets off their duffs and starts acting like they give a damn the sooner people will stop bagging on us as “The Southleast”.
The thing that makes me the most mad is the constant comparison to Detroit including the loss to them in 2002. So Detroit is leading the west.. but where have a bunch of thier points come from? The bottom four teams in the conference. No one else in their division is even in sniffing range of the playoffs and started mailing it in MONTHS ago. Detroit can’t win the Cup because the arent the best team in the league by a long shot, they just have the most points.
I’m sure your watching the game and will probably post on it, but I figured I would start the ball rolling.. Carolina is getting cheated tonight in washington bad.. holy man Ovechkin can do whatever the hell he wants and not get a call, including leaving his feet and charging Hedican through the glass, and they charge a penalty to Hedican for what? trying to defend himself?? The after the whistle hit on Staal that should have been a 5 minute major (or 10 minute game misconduct) gets called as a 2 for 2 whitewash and refuses Carolina a power play. And what the hell late in the game when Carolina gets a powerplay and before it even starts they call a ridiculous bench minor on Carolina to again refuse the Canes the power play. Twice Canes players got thrown into Huet and BOTH times the Carolina player was called for interference. I read on Yahoo what a shame it would be for Ovechkin to be playing golf during the playoffs and I guess the NHL front office decided that would be a shame as well and are making sure that washington makes the playoffs and Carolina doesnt. I agree that Carolina should have clinched the division a long time ago and not even be in this position but tonights game has been total and utter bull****. Thanks NHL for knocking Carolina out of the playoffs as the only team in the league who’s won 18 of thier last 20 and could easily run to the finals again.