Get Real

It happens sometimes that players don't do well in a new system

RD as an administrator for this forum your should resign because of your mouth. How's that you want to throw me out again?

I guess you don't read all my posts. Many many times.

Don if the NHL collapsed I would miss your post, maybe.

Typical Triumph got it wrong again. Only Stevens fits the bill IMO and that's hate him here and anywhere else but I do give him lots of credit for playing well when he has a good game or series of games.

I don't think Carpenter is ready. The article said I thought or some other article said Ftorek may not even be with Albany next season. I can't imagine him behind the bench for the Devils as head coach again. I am surprised it's not Larry but then what does he want and what has Lou to offer. Offense will be the key in the future, but championships will be won with both and the team that can score but shift to defense quickly will win it all.

Whatever the reason and regardless of money. Let's wish him the best. Maybe he wants a different style of hockey. Maybe it's location. Wahtever, he has given us all a great game while here. And yes, hopefully he will stay. Certainly the Devils could use him.

Some of you must realize that this lockout has product a common goal for all and that's MONEY. Loyality is gone for every in the NHL. It's all about MONEY Each player will want to make MONEY and some will get excited about winning the cup. Niedermayer did terrific things for the Devils. He did what he got paid to do and did it very well. he has never bad mouthed the Devils or any of the players. I can only wish him the best for him and his family. If he didn't like the deal the Devils offered for whatever reason that's his decision alone. Good luck to him, and if he chooses to stay he will do his best to give his all for the Devils. The same way he will play for any team. He deserves the max pay allowed under the new terms he is a premier player heading to the Hall of Fame.

Don, any coach as player/coach would be a disaster for the Devils. I don't think Carpenter would be a good head coach based on the job he did in Albany. He maybe a good assistant coach. The Devils might not care about this issue in this coming season and go with other than an experienced coach. Like waste a year while every thing settles in. After all they need to be ready with the best they can get when the new arena opens.

Neither Looks like lots of opportunities for making the wrong decisions because they will be made on money and not what's best for the team playing wise. But some would say that a mediocre product is better than none.

Doesn't sound like Robinson is the guy or Lou isn't talking, yet. http://app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/.../507130498/1002 Robinson, Lewis left out of Devils' plans? GM Lamoriello has direction in mind Published in the Asbury Park Press 07/13/05 BY MIKE KERWICK STAFF WRITER If Larry Robinson is going to be introduced as the next head coach of the Devils, it's news to him. If Dave Lewis is going to be offered the keys to New Jersey, nobody's bothered to tell him. Robinson said Tuesday afternoon that New Jersey general manager Lou Lamoriello had not contacted him to inquire if the former Devils head coach was interested in returning to lead his old team. Lewis said he had not heard from Lamoriello either. "I tend to think Lou has somebody in mind," Lewis said. "I haven't heard anything." Robinson and Lewis, the recently deposed head coach of the Detroit Red Wings, were believed to be the top two candidates to fill the void created when a second bout with cancer forced Pat Burns off the Devils' bench. Now it sounds possible that neither one will take the reins in New Jersey if and when the NHL returns for the 2005-06 season. "I think we know what direction we're going to go," Lamoriello said. Lamoriello said he will not necessarily wait until the official completion of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement before making a decision. "We might still do something this week," Lamoriello said. If not Robinson or Lewis, then who? Maybe Bobby Carpenter, a former Devils forward who was Burns' top assistant in New Jersey. Carpenter has no NHL head coaching experience, but was the head coach of New Jersey's AHL affiliate, the Albany River Rats, during the 2001-02 season. Lamoriello has been known to pull off surprises. He stunned just about everyone when he hired Kevin Constantine in January of 2002. At the time, Constantine was the general manager of the Pittsburgh Forge. Robinson led New Jersey to the Stanley Cup in 2000, then took the Devils back to the Finals in 2001. He was fired in January of the following season. Now a special assignment coach with the Devils, Robinson said he last talked to Lamoriello a few weeks ago, but not about returning as coach. "I think if the opportunity came about and I was asked to do it, I probably would certainly think about it," Robinson said. Lewis, a player for those terrible Devils teams from the early 80s, went 96-41-21-6 in two seasons as Detroit's head coach. Early playoff exits hastened his departure. "I'll put it this way," Lewis said, "I still have coaching in my blood." Lewis leaves for Stockholm, Sweden, Sunday for a fantasy hockey program. He said he has nothing but fond recollections of his tenure in Jersey. "We loved New Jersey," Lewis said. "We lived in Morris Plains. My wife and I just absolutely loved the town. Our kids went to school there. We had nothing but great memories of New Jersey." Three former NHL coaches unlikely to get the job are Mike Babcock, Paul Maurice and Robbie Ftorek. Babcock is expected to be the guy to replace Lewis in Detroit. Maurice, former coach of the Carolina Hurricanes team that knocked the Devils out of the playoffs in 2002, recently signed on to coach Toronto's top minor league affiliate. Ftorek, one Devils insider said, may not even be back coaching Albany next season. Hartford Wolfpack general manager Jim Schoenfeld, another potential candidate, is more likely to be named the next head coach in Hartford sometime this summer. Schoenfeld was head coach of the first Devils team to make the playoffs back in 1988.

Don could it be the Good guy vs Bad guy strategy and in fact Goodenow and Linden plus players committee are working a strategy that they think they need at this time? Time will tell who will lose his job, Bettman or Goodenow or both. I vote both for what they have done negatively to the NHL.

Initially it would appear that Goodenow should get the blame for what we hear is the new CBA. But we will have to wait a couple of years once the season starts again to see if the NHL and the players are a positive track or downward slide. Just maybe it will be Bettman that will be the blame for failure of the NHL negotiations. It is still the players that put forth the effort on the ice.

It's been a long time in coming and I sincerely hope it get finalized very soon, but inside I have this feeling that it won't get ratified by the players because it get hung up on one point or for some strange reason the owners won't go along with it. It would be nice to have facts to talk about and to see the effect the agreement will have on each team and especially the Devils.

We will have to wait and see until all the fall out of the CBA hits the ice. But it would apear Derek that they will be a powerhouse at the start of the season whenever that begins.

I have seen the 20% number before this posting. It says at a 37% cap the max salary would be $ 7.4 M.

DM, we did have an OT point system last season played but with a 3 point system the differential between 3 and 1 or 0 points will have a major effect against the weaker offensive team. It will force offense and cause a team not to settle for a tie at end of regulation game time. Then in the OT and shootout if both are necessary there will be an offense greater than under previous system. Just my opinion. I seriously think that the NHL must get offense into the games of the fan fallout will continue for the not so strong team attendance teams. This will have an effect on the NHL. That's why the NHL wants major city team to become interesting like the Rangers, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and LA. It's about fans in the seats for games on a consistent basis regardless of who the home team is playing. Example that is close to home the Devils sell outs are when the Ranger, Flyer and Islander fans come to see their team play in NJ. That's a function of location and closeness and support their team. Fans in the seats each and every game is a must for the NHL to be successful.

The three point system described isn't that bad. The emphasis will be to win during the 60 minutes. However is tied there is incentive to play hard for a OT win or shoot out for 2 points. The different between win and lose will be significant it will turn on offense. Getting a point for a regular game tie will force teams to play offense. More excitement more fans.

The Meadowlands and Long Island are not New York City. Don, defense wins championships if you score goals. Fans want excitement not the trap for 24/7. As for football in the Meadowlands they are called the NY Giants and NJ Jets not the NJ anything. It is location location and it's about name. If it happens that the Rangers improve and the Devils can't beat the Rangers so be it, they can't beat them. Don't blame the Rangers for winnning. But I think the Devils can beat the Rangers and have beaten the Rangers so why worry about that. You don't have to cheer for them of even like them. When the Devils play the Ranger the arena is a sellout not with Devils fans but with Ranger fans that can't get seats in the garden. So the Rangers are the big draw. They always have been the big team for NYC and the big draw. They get the most press by design the promote themselves.

Devils are not considered in the big city market. Just like the Islanders. The NHL doesn't want the Devils to be the Cup champs this coming season if it's a team about defense and weak on offense. The NHL needs Offense, scoring and excitement to gain new fans and maybe get back those fans that have left the sport for something else. Then there is the sponser money that will be reduced this season and maybe for the next few years. The TV contract will be weaken as well until there is a positive attitude and fan base for the NHL. NHL and team merchandise needs to move as well inorder to get free advertising, this will probably be weak as welll this coming season. It's all about fans in the seats. Not seats purchased but no one shows up for the games leaving the lower sections half empty.

sundstorm I hope you're right. I'd like the Nets in Newark arena it makes it a more viable financial setting.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/stor...TC-DT9705204233 Updated: July 7, 2005, 4:19 PM ET NHL gets one chance to do it rightBy Scott Burnside Special to ESPN.com The NHL lockout may have been painfully pointless, but in the end it remains the easy part of the journey. Now, on the eve of a historic new accord that will bring an end to the longest labor stoppage in the history of pro sports, comes the hard part -- restoring a once-great game to its place in the sporting universe. More to the point now comes the challenge of trusting the owners and players that ran this historic game into the ground to revive it. So much work to do, so little faith in those who must do it. "If we make a mistake here we're sunk," one NHL coach told ESPN.com this week. It's always easier to tear something down, to smash something to smithereens, than it is to build, to create from nothing. Look at the ease with which players and owners allowed a dispute over how to divvy up $2.1 billion in revenues to swallow an entire season and jeopardize the future of a league that's been in operation for the better part of a century. When a new collective bargaining agreement is unveiled in the coming days, the owners will emerge having ground the players' association into dust, imposing a salary cap significantly lower than the one offered on the eve of the season's cancellation in mid-February. The players' shocking offer of a 24 percent rollback on existing contracts will also be part of the new deal, as will restrictive entry-level salaries and a revamped arbitration process. Yet anyone who claims victory in the wake of the lockout is a fool -- pure and simple. It's believed the new salary cap will peg player salaries at 54 percent of league revenues, assuming $1.7 billion in revenues for the coming season. But that's merely an educated guess. The truth is the damage to the sport is somewhere between a lot and incalculable. Similarly, the work needed to be done to undo or mitigate that damage exists somewhere between those two poles. The league has been forced to give away its product to NBC in a manner more befitting a common streetwalker. And that's the good news on the television front, where ESPN's decision to walk away from the league leaves the NHL without any national cable presence in the United States. Finding a way to beam its new and improved product into American homes will be just one of a series of crucial tasks facing the league, its players and its owners in the coming weeks. The media across most of the United States have for weeks treated the league and its lockout as an elephant might consider a gnat -- small, buzzing, mildly annoying, but ultimately inconsequential. How will the league restore interest on Web sites, in newspapers and in magazines, many of which have already decided the NHL doesn't warrant coverage provided other major sporting leagues? Sponsors will expect cut-rate deals to come back, assuming they can be convinced to hang around for the new show. Teams must reach out to fans and make their buildings welcoming places in a way they have never done before -- starting with reduced ticket prices. The product itself must be better, the rule changes dramatic and enticing. So much work to do. And it has been encouraging to hear that players, owners and managers finally appear to be on the same page in repairing the product itself. Shootouts to break tie games, a more exciting overtime format, smaller goalie equipment, the elimination of the red line, wider blue lines and restrictions on goaltenders' handling of the puck are all solid ideas. But this is a league that has a long history of seeing great ideas unraveled by inertia and selfishness. Check the history books. As recently as the fall of 2002, the league hosted a rules "summit" in Toronto, after which claims of a golden age of scoring were made. The promises of a more exciting game yielded nothing but more clutching and grabbing as the season lurched toward the playoffs when all bets were off. And when calls were made, coaches and general managers complained that officials were idiots and their teams treated unfairly. Even the new competition committee made up of four active players, four general managers and one owner (Philadelphia's Ed Snider), has been quietly ripped because coaches and on-ice officials have been excluded. In the past few days there have been signs the hockey world is creaking and shuddering back to life:

Isn't this post political?

Pk Help me understand why you are going down this path. The sale price of teams was increasing ("X") before the lockout. McMullen sold his team for more than he paid for it, just an example. Don't jump all over that PK. PK if "X" is a number let's assume it's 13% then "X" minus is less than 13%. PK do you follow? PK I never said that the owners were turning a profit before the lock out. Profit PK and sale price of a team aren't the same. You don't know what will happen with the salaries they may reduce by 24% there could be an escrow of 20% we don't know yet. I don't assume that an escrow account of player's salaries are considered a revenue number as escrow suggest it goes back to the players. So I don't relly understand your point PK and I don't think you do either. Revenue comes in many flavors so loss of fans represent loss of revenue. Salaries aren't revenue there an expense PK. Ticket prices are revenue like hotdogs, beer, parking, programs, hats, shirts and etc. Fans spend money at games and Owners want them to spend that's why they want corporate boxes, spenders. Enjoy your little fun, PK Please don't send me anymore emails. thanks PK Get over it.

Proir to the lockout the financial worth of these team was growing at a rate of let's say "X" after this lockout the rate of growth for the team worth will be "X" minus. So what is your point PK? Prior to the lockout some teams had excellant on-ice product while others didn't. One has to define on-ice product. Some people enjoy a 1-0 game while other enjoy lots of scoring. Some people enjoy a defensive game while others enjoy an offensive and then some enjoy a combination of both. Some people enjoy a consistent team other care less. No giving Steven a big raise late in his career didn't improve the Devils On-Ice product. PK posted "To revive NHL revenue you would have proposed a significant decrease in ticket prices and a major pay raise for all players? I think that's what we're all wondering... it sounds like that was your idea of a "win-win" Is that correct?" NO I would propose an incentive to bring fans back into the seats for all games at home to help the NHL recover. If that means lowering ticket prices while changing hockey style of a team then that's what needs to be done. Not every team will have the same problem some team were drawing before lockout. Everyone, with any smarts, know you can't lower ticket prices and raise salaries and produce a win-win situation. Revenue isn't only ticket sales. You need loyal and consistent fans to obtain the other revenues.