Dustin Byfuglien played at 300lbs.?!

Wow.  Is it possible that Dustin Byfuglien weighed 300 lbs at the end of the season?  That's amazing.  

Too bad for the guy, if he can't get this under control.  And that's the sad part, is that it is squarely within his control, it's not like blowing your ACL, or what Josh Harding is going through.  But obviously, there's a big issue there, if it was easy for him to control his weight, we wouldn't be having this discussion.  

Big Buff had a difficult upbringing, growing up with an absentee father, some hardships, you just hope that he can find the right avenues for support and get his career back on track.

A broken nose, concussion, bruises and cuts are a a foreseeable, acceptable outcome in minor hockey

This is what happens when P.J. Stock and Mike Milbury and Don Cherry set the moral bar for the sport of hockey.  Somehow a player getting his helmet ripped off and getting filled in with rights, for the crime of snowing a goalie, is thought to be an acceptable consequence, a risk he consented to when he signed up for hockey.

Gary Bettman, with his remarkably consistent refereeing, wears that.

Thoughts on the Nathan Beaulieu assault charges and court case

There's not much new to report on the Nathan Beaulieu assault charges, and resultant court case.  He had an appearance on June 11th, and a date was set for another appearance on July 9.

Some people are dismissing it as a mere bar fight, and nothing to worry about.  They rely on their personal experience that such incidents don't carry much consequence, but I think that's underestimating the severity of the situation.

Something we have to remember is that if this was just some bar fight, they Beaulieus wouldn't be going to court over it.  You're not charged with assault during a normal punchup.  When two guys stand toe-to-toe and go at it, they're both deemed to consent to the fight.  As such, neither can claim to have been assaulted, which is defined roughly as any unwanted application of force.

Practically, this force has to be more than trifling and transitory in nature, for the incident to be considered assault.  I've often had to direct someone's behaviour with a gentle touch on the shoulder or back guiding them in the direction I wanted them to go.  Sometimes my 'adversary' would jerk away and loudly proclaim to be a lawyer or a law student, and that what I'd just done was an assault.

"Oh, so you're a law student?" I'd reply, borrowing a quote from a partner, "Well then let me give you a lesson in law."  And I'd hit them with the 'trifling and transitory' phrase taken from case law, and that would usually shut them up, if they weren't way too drunk.

So in this case, for the Beaulieus to be going to court for assault, either the other party(ies) didn't initially consent to a fight, or the fight got completely out of hand, ie: shoving match to get someone out the door escalates to someone getting booted in the head, or two pugilists gang up on one person, or the 'winner' of the fight persists long after the fight is reasonably over.  According to the Sun article, the injuries were relatively light, but there was a case of two guys teaming up on one adversary.

As much as I'm looking forward to finding out what actually happened, and I hold out hope that Nathan will be exonerated or get off lightly, I can't be as cavalier as some commenters are, and just shrug it off as boys being boys, and that we're just dealing with a dustup commonly seen at parties and drinking establishments.  Police officers see these run-of-the-mill encounters all the time, and are capable of sending these combatants on their way without recommending charges to Crown Counsel.  That they did, and that Crown decided to proceed, indicates that we're dealing with something more serious.

Stuff like this reminds me of a senior colleague who scoffed when some of us were discussing a particular event, and whether someone was innocent.

"Innocent?"  he cried. "People aren't innocent.  Some are found not guilty, but nobody's ever innocent."

Should Josh Gorges be traded, or should we just get him to pack on the muscle?

I've never been a big fan of Josh Gorges.  I'm not a 'hater', my world isn't black or white like that, but I've never been as impressed as some analysts who love his steady, dependable game.  I've always felt that a defenceman like him should either bring more offence to the table, or more toughness.  Josh is a 'tweener', not small and slick with the puck, not a big bruiser who'll make the opposition pay, and maybe it's my fault for not seeing the value he brings while not necessarily being easy to pigeon-hole.

I winced when his new contract was announced by Pierre Gauthier, appalled at how much money he was set to make and the term he received.  We were overtaken by circumstances, having let Roman Hamrlik walk in free agency, and being bereft of quality defenceman.  Now, I applauded the decision to let the veterans go and give minutes to Raphaël Diaz, Alexei Emelin and Yannick Weber last year, but it effectively pushed Josh Gorges into the #2 role, and we were forced to compensate him as such.  I like to characterize that as Maple Leaf disease.  Dmitri Yuskevich had a good season?  Ladle on the dollars.  Luke Schenn is having a promising start to his career?  Let's pay him like a superstar, but now, quick!

Anyway, Josh had an underwhelming season, he struggled on a few nights, especially against bigger teams.  This has brought out two distinct reactions by some fans, which is that he should either be traded, or be asked to bulk up so as to be bigger and tougher.

First, the idea of trading him is silly and ill-timed.  You don't trade an NHL-regular defenceman out of spite, or frustration at a relatively uneven season.  That's the classic definition of selling low.  Josh is a valuable asset, and we need to retain him and avail ourselves of his services, and if we are to trade him eventually, it has to be when he's playing well and there is demand for his services.

Right now, every team believes that some youngster or two in their system is ready to step in and play a role next season.  After training camp, when these guys disappoint, or later in the season when injuries hit contenders, is the right time to trade Josh Gorges.  Near the trade deadline, as an injury-depleted team is contemplating its playoff chances, is the right time to be discussing such a trade.

The second fan reaction, to require him to add on ten or fifteen pounds of muscle over the summer, is not realistic, unless Josh has a way to contact Dr. Jamie Astaphan.  Which admittedly would be quite the trick.

For Josh Gorges to 'muscle up to at least 215' is not possible by legal means.  He's a mature, trained athlete, he's not a growing boy of 18 or 19 who still has a lot of growing and filling out to do.  Josh's frame and body type isn't that of an ectomorph who puts on muscle in his pecs and lats every time he has a steak.  He's a leaner guy with a frame that tops out around 195-200 lbs when he trains for hockey.  That's who he is.

Josh Gorges works out every summer with his former Kelowna Rocket buddies, including Shea Weber.  Players who spend their summers in the Okanagan join them for these training sessions, including notably Carey Price.  He's not lazy, he's not shirking his conditioning, he's not failing to realize some advantage by not training.  He works out very hard, by all reports.

A lot of people have unrealistic expectations of what is possible for an athlete to achieve just through training.  For a player to put on five pounds of muscle in a year is a herculean achievement.  When you hear that a player "put on 15 pounds of muscle over the summer", you should be very skeptical.  If that number is accurate and verifiable and not pharmaceutically-derived, it takes as a baseline the athlete's weight at the end of a difficult season, when he was beaten and sore and overtaxed.  Just by taking a month off to recuperate and heal, he probably put back on 10 or 12 pounds of body weight, and not all that was "pure muscle", a lot of that was water weight or reserves stored as fat.  The last two or three pounds may be muscle put on through extraordinarily hard work in July and August.  That's the real story about the 10 or 15 pounds of muscle put on during the summer.

So we need to moderate our expectations of Josh, and accept that he's a steady, dependable defenceman who'll give everything he has to the team, but he'll not be the big bruising type, just the guy who's good enough to block shots and then clear the zone efficiently.  Which isn't bad, and certainly shouldn't mean we should run him out of town for a low draft pick.

Should the Canadiens 'overpay' for Brian Bickell?

Brian Bickell has been a hot topic of conversation for Canadiens fans, if not around the entire league.  He's a big strong guy, at 6'4" and upwards of 230 lbs, but combines that with some skill and finish around the net, and an ability to keep up with Top 6 linemates.  Since size is going at an ever-higher premium these days in the NHL, he's chosen the right time to have such a good season, this being his last contract year before hitting Unrestricted Free Agent status.

Before this season, we'd never heard of this guy, he'd been drafted in the second round in 2004, to little fanfare, and spent four seasons in the AHL working on his game, earning brief callups with the 'Hawks before sticking for good at the start of the 2010 season.  The first time his name was mentioned as a trade target was at the trade deadline, when it was rumoured he was one of Marc Bergevin's targets to improve his team, along with Kyle Clifford and Mike Rupp.

Now, he's the flavour of the month, and teams like the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs are stopping just short of tampering by openly courting him, letting team mouthpieces do their bidding in columns and news reports.

"Expect the Red Wings to target Brian Bickell on July 1..." they say, obviating the need for interested GM's to go up to his agent and slip him their phone number on a thousand-dollar bill.

So Marc Bergevin has his work cut out if he wants to add him to the roster.  His asking price went from a Brandon Prust-like contract to double that, and some team is bound to give it to him.

Which begs the question, is he worth that much?  Cautiously, we'll say that it depends.  On the right roster, he could have a tremendous impact, and be worth it if all goes well.

Let's look at Mark Streit, an undersized but slick offensive defenceman who apparently has just scored a four-year, $21M contract from the Flyers.  There is no way he would have been worth this much money or term to the Canadiens, replete as they are with that very type of player.  Mark Streit to us is the proverbial selling ice to the Inuit.  For the Flyers though, as injury-riddled as they were last season, as starved as they were for a puck-mover and powerplay quarterback, he's worth that kind of investment, including the risk an 'over-35' contract carries.  (As an aside, quick, let's trade to the Flyers Yannick Weber for a second-rounder before their tumescence subsides.)

In similar fashion, Brian Bickell may not be worth the contract he'll command to teams like the St. Louis Blues, the L.A. Kings or San Jose Sharks, they're full up to the gills with big bruisers.  They need to round out their rosters with other types of players, and spread their cap hit more evenly.

To teams like the Vancouver Canucks though, adding Brian Bickell to their lineup radically transforms their makeup.  Combine him with a maturing Zack Kassian, a returning David Booth and a healthy Ryan Kesler, and now their forward corps is more imposing, and they have players who can line up with the Sedin brothers and protect them.

Same with the Canadiens.  The relatively smaller lineup would benefit greatly from this injection of size and toughness, it would be a big yank on the steering wheel in a different direction.  To the Canadiens, and the Canucks and the Red Wings, he's worth the premium, because the skillset he brings, the total package, ticks a bunch of needs off the list.

So we need to take the possibility of acquiring Brian Bickell as a free agent in context, taking all factors into account.  Yes, the Canadiens will have to overpay, but maybe Marc Bergevin and Rick Dudley can use their personal knowledge of the young man, because of their time in the Chicago organization, and pitch him like they did with Brandon Prust last season.  They can sell a young improving team, a great hockey town, great facilities, a chance to play a pivotal role instead of being asked to goon it up.  All that'd be missing is a Québécoise girlfriend.  Maybe Mariepier Morin has some friends she can introduce to Brian.

Personally, I don't think it's very likely that Mr. Bickell will end up as a Hab, since Marc Bergevin has been very clear that he wants to build through the draft and not free agency.  His targeted signing of Brandon Prust was comparatively cheap at $2.25M a season, but even that was thought to be an overpayment by analysts and a lot of fans.  The opportunity to 'target' Brian Bickell with such a cheap contract has probably vanished, and he'll be chasing other rabbits on July 1, but let's give it a chance and see how it plays out.

Jonathan Huberdeau wins the Calder Trophy. Could Alex Galchenyuk have won it with more ice time?

With Jonathan Huberdeau winning the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year, some Canadiens fans question whether Alex Galchenyuk could have been the recipient if he'd been given as much ice time as the Panthers rookie.  I think it's possible, but I commend Coach Therrien and his assistants for his handling of his rookie.  It would have been easy to start riding the big lad when the offence stalled and injuries mounted at the end of the season.  They could have tried to squeeze out an extra goal or two from him, at the risk of killing the Golden Goose.

Conversely, it would have been just as easy to bench him or scratch him from the lineup for a few games when he went through his drought past the halfway mark of the season.  While that wouldn't have been a disaster, as Alex seems like he has his head screwed on straight, and has a good support network with his coach-father, and his mom and sis living with him, the Canadiens opted to let him learn by playing through his drought, working his way out of it, instead of observing from the press box.

Instead of messing with his icetime, the coaches stuck to the plan, they gave him manageable minutes in controlled situations, keeping him hungry, never putting him in over his head, and kept his development as the primordial goal when doling out minutes.  Long-term thinking, for once, something we've been in short supply of lately.  As long as the kid worked hard, and he never stopped, even when the production tailed off, he was busting his butt, he was encouraged and cajoled, and it will pay off down the road, more than any trophy would have.

Jonathan Huberdeau was in a different situation entirely.  His coach and GM could give him as much or as little ice time as they wanted, based on the situation.  There was no pressure to achieve results in the standing and playoffs. He also was a year older, and thus had played a full two seasons more of hockey than Alex, who lost one season due to injury.  That extra maturity meant that Mr. Huberdeau could be treated as the more 'ready' player he was, especially when considering the comparative lack of quality forwards in Florida.

Coach Therrien had a playoff run to worry about, while thinking about his rookie's ice time.  The fact that he showed so much restraint in his use speaks to the security he feels in his job, he's not in a 'win now' situation.  It also shows that he and Marc Bergevin have a good rapport, they're in agreement about building for the long haul, as opposed to Bob Gainey and Guy Carbonneau with respect to the Carey Price situation, for example.

Zdeno Chara is the leader of the Bruins. He captains their dirty team.

As if there was any doubt, Zdeno Chara is a mean, dangerous, dirty player.  Plus, he cravenly, blatantly lies about it.  Where have we seen this before?

The reason this is treated as topical, as opposed to a well-known, well-understood fact, is that video has surfaced of Mr. Chara, involved in one of those tiresome scrums after the whistle has blown where everyone pushes and slashes each other, that for some reason the NHL tolerates.  In this video, Mr. Chara gives a direct, not in any way accidental, punch to Sidney Crosby's jaw.  Mr. Crosby, the acknowledged best player in the world, had his jaw shattered earlier in the season courtesy of a teammate's deflected slap shot.  He had worn extra facial protection since his comeback, but received permission from his doctors and decided to remove it for the Eastern final.  And a dirty, dirty Bruin, the leader of the dirty Bruins in fact, immediately targeted him, in the first game.

This is an intolerable situation.  The NHL has to protect its meal ticket, the face of the modern game.  It cannot allow less talented players to neutralize, or even worse, attempt to injure its stars with cheap goon tactics.

Why the NHL allows this climate of intimidation and cheap thuggery to be the defining aspect of its sport is baffling.  Every other sport is opening up its game, encourage scoring, favouring the skilled stars over the defenders, liberalizing rules to showcase its best performers.

Meanwhile, pro hockey is suffocating under a blanket of unimaginative coaching, of interference tactics, of intimidation of skillful players by lumbering behemoths.  Crashing and banging are the most important aspects of NHL hockey in 2013, ahead of passing and shooting top corner, and dekeing the defenceman to go on a breakaway.  It's absolute madness, and it's business as usual, somehow.

There will be, at this summer's entry draft and free agency period, a great gold rush for players 6'3" and above, 'character' players who can 'finish their checks' and 'protect their teammates', while players who make plays and actually put pucks in the net will go unclaimed.

It's not even questioned that the Bruins as an organization champion this mindless thuggery.  There's no rebuke or opprobrium.  They're the Big Bad Bruins, after all.  Terry O'Reilly and Stan Jonathan are more celebrated than Phil Esposito.  Their carnival barker of a play-by-play announcer, Jack Edwards, shills for his team and distorts facts and bends the truth into a hammerlock until it surrenders, and creates a culture among its fans that intimidation are a valid tactic, central to the sport of hockey.  Its coach Claude Julien sees his band of hookers and muckers and grinders as victims of embellishment calls and impressionable referees.

One revolting aspect of this assault, out of many, is that when confronted by Darren Dreger of TSN about this, even when shown the video, Zdeno Chara tried to lie and obfuscate his way out of it.  He apparently insisted that since he didn't receive a penalty, the event didn't happen.  He even challenged Mr. Dreger to prove that it was his arm delivering the punch, as if it wasn't clear as day that it was.

Such shocking mendacity isn't uncommon to the Bruin's organization, and its band of cheap shot artists. There's Andrew Ference who flipped the bird to the Montréal crowd during the 2011 playoffs, then dissembled to the media after the game, explaining it away as a "glove malfunction", that his middle finger "got caught".  It was such a transparent lie that not only he was shamed, but everyone who heard it as well.  Still, Greg Campbell's daddy's cronies exonerated him, he escaped suspension, and with him in the lineup, the Bruins eked out the narrowest of victories in Game 7 overtime.  A year later, he 'came clean', admitting that what everybody plainly saw was what indeed happened.  He couched his belated outbreak of honesty in philosophical terms, stating on his charity/vanity project-blog that personal responsibility and accountability are sorely lacking in the modern world, and he was trying to make amends.

Fast forward to this year's playoffs, and Mr. Ference takes a cheap shot on Maple Leafs forward Mikhail Grabovski in Game 1 of the opening round.  What does Mr. Accountability do now?  Post-game, when questioned about the elbow, he again openly lies, pretending not to know what the reporters were talking about.  It was as soul-crushing as when a three-year old lies right to your face, and you know he's lying, it's not that good a lie at all, but the toddler is too dumb and hasn't developed a sense of morality yet, so he sticks to his lie.

There are more lying Bruin thugs.  When Milan Lucic intentionally ran Ryan Miller in open ice, giving him a concussion, he gave a ridiculous explanation that he didn't have time to stop, only to brace for impact, which is obviously false when reviewing the video.  Surprise, he got away scot-free, the Department of Player Lack of Safety deciding that the two-minute penalty was punishment enough for the remorseless Bruin.  As Kurt Vonnegut wrote, so it goes.

When Zdeno Chara almost made Max Pacioretty a paraplegic, he then also wouldn't own up to his responsibility, downplaying his assault by saying he didn't know which player he hit, and didn't know the stanchion was there, both egregious lies to avoid suspension by Daddy Campbell.  Sure enough, the deliberate, retaliatory assault was deemed a 'hockey play' by the league.  Gary Bettman went so far as to say the league was extraordinarily comfortable with the ruling (!)

So a Bruin took a whopper of a cheap shot and went unpunished.  And now they're 4 wins away from winning the Stanley Cup again, even though it's meant to be awarded to the best hockey team, not a bunch of brawlers and backstabbers and reprobates.  As Lord Stanley wrote when he first thought of bequeathing his Cup:

I have for some time been thinking that it would be a good thing if there were a challenge cup which should be held from year to year by the champion hockey team in the Dominion (of Canada). There does not appear to be any such outward sign of a championship at present, and considering the general interest which matches now elicit, and the importance of having the game played fairly and under rules generally recognized, I am willing to give a cup which shall be held from year to year by the winning team.

Yet the Bruins are again slashing and gooning and crosschecking their way ever closer to another Cup.

And the Commissioner, the man entrusted with the safeguarding and stewardship of our national game, is drunk with power at the wheel.  When questioned by Dave Nailor of TSN about the state of refereeing, he exclaimed that it had been "remarkably consistent".  Sure, he continued, the game is played at breakneck speeds, so they'll miss calls, but those will even out between the teams.

Which proves that he doesn't watch a lot of hockey, and has even less knowledge.  The only thing consistent about the refereeing is that it has ceased occurring.  They have abdicated their responsibility.  They're like substitute teachers who have made a couple of meek attempts to inculcate their students, but faced with resistance, now have their feet up on their desk and are running out the clock on the period or week, while their charges are going at each other Lord-of-the-Flies style.

Next week, when the American sports shows recap the weekend's events, shows like "Pardon the Interruption" and "Around the Horn", you can bet that they'll be replaying the Chara punch, not any slick play by Patrick Kane or Patrice Bergeron.  And that's where the league has arrived, with Gary Bettman and Colin Campbell at the helm.  Yet they'll crow about increased ratings and revenue, and state that the game is healthier than ever.

They've stifled the game, weighted it down, it's only due to external factors that are causing all sports properties to skyrocket in value that the NHL doesn't succumb to the many injuries perpetrated on it.

The NHL had a Wayne Gretzky-Mario Lemieux Golden Age that it failed to capitalize on.  While the NFL rode Dan Marino, Joe Montana and John Elway to absurd growth and success.  And while the NBA marketed Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson to explode onto the public's consciousness, and obsessively nurtured the legend of Michael Jordan, like Gollum with his Precious, the NHL allowed Mike Hough and the Sutters to hook and slash Mario until he couldn't take it anymore.  Meanwhile, Michael Jordan couldn't be breathed on by an opponent without a foul being called, to the delight of fans, video games players, movie goers...

The NHL is currently wasting what should be another Golden Age, that of Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin.  Pavel Datsyuk, Evgeni Malkin, the Sedin brothers, they should be playing the roles of Peter Stasny and Dale Hawerchuk, amassing 130 point seasons while they try to keep up to the two superstars.  Instead, we live in the Age of Brian Bickell and Chris Neil.

So.  We have proof of a repeat offender deliberately punching the best player in the world, intentionally, on his injured jaw, to cause pain and possibly knock him out of the series.  And the NHL will not do anything about it.

Shame on you Gary Bettman.  Shame on you, National Hockey League.