The biggest name on the free agent market this summer has found a new home, and it's not a home many people expected him to end up in. As he promised, Marian Hossa did indeed sign a contract for less than market value to win a Stanley Cup. The surprising part? It's a one year deal with the Detroit Red Wings.
In many places this will be spun as "Hossa just wants to win." This is complete and utter horsepucky. Hossa wants to have his cake and eat it, too. Prior to Detroit's one-year, $7.4 million offer, it looked like Hossa's choices were to take a monstrous deal from Edmonton or Vancouver, or sign for slightly less money with a more serious contender like Pittsburgh or Montreal. He seems to have definitely left a seven-year, $50 million offer from the Penguins on the table. Now Hossa gets his shot at the Cup this year, and if it works out he gets his huge payday next year. In the all-time Mercenary Move Hall of Fame, this one is a first-ballot inductee.
As many have already noted, Hossa fits in perfectly with the Wings. He's a great two-way player and this one year deal lets them shoot for a repeat in 2009, then leaves plenty of cap room to deal with Henrik Zetterberg and Johan Franzen, who will be UFAs after next year. In purely hockey terms, it's a great move for Hossa and Detroit. In terms of karma? Hossa's really tempting the universe on this one.
The photo you see here is Detroit Red Wings assistant coach Todd McLellan hoisting the Stanley Cup last week in Pittsburgh.
The San Jose Sharks hope to see McLellan hoisting a Cup soon in his new role. A press conference is set for Thursday, where McLellan will be named the Sharks' head coach, replacing the fired Ron Wilson.
"It's a very good feeling," McLellan said in a statement released by the team. "From the first moment Doug called to the moment he offered the job, I felt comfortable. I think the Sharks have done a tremendous job. You don't get that close to 50 wins for a number of years in a row without a lot of talent. It's a matter of getting over the hump. There are some real parallels between the Wings and the Sharks."
It's a sound hire for San Jose, as McLellan was likely to become a head coach this summer. He assisted Mike Babcock for three years in Detroit, spending a lot of his time working with the Wings' power play. If his work there is any indication, I wouldn't be wanting to take too many penalties when playing the Sharks next season.
McLellan also spent four years as a head coach with the Houston Aeros of the AHL, so he's not void of any head-coaching experience.
What happened to San Jose in this year's playoff wasn't totally Ron Wilson's fault (injuries played a huge role), but it was time for a change. Tip your cap to GM Doug Wilson for not hiring one of the many retreads that were out there (I'll forget I ever heard the name "Mike Milbury" connected to this search, K?).
Here's another hidden bonus of having the NHL on NBC: Getting a pair of Red Wings on Jay Leno with the Stanley Cup. It was nice to see that half of Rochester, Michigan was in the audience and that they got a chance to touch the Cup.
Meet Katrina Hancock. Aside from having a potentially unfortunate last name (tee-hee!), she is also a reporter for NBC's Detroit affiliate WDIV. Hancock was assigned to cover the Penguins and Wings Stanley Cup Final but at some point she became the interviewee and not the interviewer. KDKA, a Pittsburgh station interviewed her and, well, I don't want to spoil the YouTube. What I will say is that it's a lesson in instantaneous career suicide.
The money quote: "She was the only Detroit journalist to say that Pittsburgh has better fans than Detroit."
Really? The only one? You don't say! I guess the rest of them liked their jobs too much. Seriously, did she want to get fired? If she did, I can commend her for doing it in such a creative way. Otherwise, well, WHAT THE HECK WAS SHE THINKING?
What Hancock said might not have been the best quote of the whole piece, though. The Pittsburgh anchor, Paul Martino, finished his piece by saying "and I had to promise Katrina that we wouldn't be sending that interview back to Detroit." Somehow I imagine it took a Herculean effort on his part to not burst out laughing in the middle of that sentence. You had to figure that he was smart enough to know (unlike Hancock) that even though he wouldn't send it back to Detroit personally, in a digital world things like this do, in fact, get back to Detroit.
Whoops. I guess it is very different when you're on the other side of the microphone.
It's one of the toughest jobs in all of sports broadcasting. While your colleagues are talking with athletes who are overjoyed at reaching the pinnacle of their sport, you're stuck interviewing one of the guys from the losing team. On NBC during the Stanley Cup Finals, that guy was Bob Neumeier.
Every Thursday, Earl Sleek will conspire with his pen and scanner to bring you another installment of PuckToons. Hopefully you will find these amusing, relevant, well-drawn, or you're a person who is tolerant towards mediocrity. It was quite a finish for this year's Stanley Cup Finals last night, as the Detroit Red Wings ended their dominant season and postseason with a 3-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins. I can't help feeling for Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, though, as his attempt to sit on a loose puck in the third period literally backfired into the net on what would prove to be the cup-winning goal.
It may take Penguins fans a while for the sting of that goal to wear off, especially if opposing fans start using the phrase "pulling a Fleury" to describe self-inflicted wounds. Still, at least it isn't exactly an unprecedented embarrassment – if you recall, last year's cup-winning goal occurred when an unpressured Ottawa Senators defenseman Chris Phillips put the puck past his teammate Ray Emery in the second period of Game Five.
Overall, Fleury had a tremendous postseason and shouldn't let this one blunder tarnish his reputation. Still, if he's as lucky as Phillips, someone else will score next year's cup-winning goal into their own net and help hockey fans move past Fleury's rubber-pants play.
After 1,316 games, regular and postseason, the NHL's 2007-08 campaign came to a close last night in Pittsburgh when the Red Wings carried away their 11th Stanley Cup.
To wrap things up in style, please join myself and FanHouse's all-star cast of bloggers and analysts as we take a final look at the finals, last night's Game 6 and the year that was.
The chat gets underway at 1 p.m. ET.
Topics for discussion:
Does four Cups in 11 years constitute a dynasty in today's NHL?
As I was watching Chris Chelios skating the Stanley Cup around the ice at Mellon Arena last night, I couldn't help but wonder: Was this the last we'd see of the 46-year old defenseman? After playing in 15 of Detroit's first 16 playoff games, Chelios was injured at the tail end of the Western Conference Finals with Dallas, and was a healthy scratch for all six games against Pittsburgh.
Each day throughout the Stanley Cup Finals, I'll be taking a look around the blogosphere at what various bloggers are saying about the series. Today, this is that post.
Well, the finals have come to an end and so will What They're Saying. It was nice having you along for the ride and thanks for tuning in every morning. Special thanks goes out to all the bloggers out there who graciously let me pull quotes from them everyday. And, of course, a congratulations goes out to the Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings. Without further ado, here's the pulse of the blogosphere on the morning after their Cup victory. It's a special extended edition.
When you're a fan of a sports team, you live and die with them every single day of the season. You feel the bumps and bruises during the year in your own individual way.
You get excited when training camp starts to creep up.
You maneuver your life schedule around game days.
You memorize every player's number, their nicknames, places of birth, and jersey size.
You put off work to scan message boards and websites to gather the latest news and rumors.
When the playoffs come around, all bets are off. Loved ones are ignored. You have trouble concentrating at work on game days. You live and die with every shift. The Cup changes everything.
You live with the ups and die with the downs. Your heart sinks with every goal against and accelerates with every goal for.
You're a hockey fan and you love your team.
Fans in both Detroit and Pittsburgh are at opposite ends of the spectrum of emotion right now. One is on top of the world right now. The other, silenced and stunned after watching their team leave everything they had on the ice.
Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.
The Stanley Cup has escaped the clutches of its caretakers, preferring to rest in the hands of sweaty, bearded men (except for Chris Osgood, who doesn't do beards, apparently) wearing white and red.
Detroit overcame Pittsburgh's home ice advantage and skated Stanley after a 3-2 win in Game Six Wednesday night. The Wings have now won an incredible 13 straight Game Sixes when leading series 3-2. 10 of those 13 have been on the road.
That stat should tell you all you need to know about Detroit's dominance, both in these playoffs and in this league over the last 11 playoff seasons. They have four Cups in that span, which is probably as close to a dynasty as you're going to see in this era of salary caps and parity and all that stuff.
Game Six didn't start well for the Penguins. An early Detroit power play was converted when Brian Rafalski's left point shot went in off Pittsburgh defenseman Hal Gill. Rafalski was open after the Penguins collapsed on Henrik Zetterberg in the right circle. Zetterberg dished the puck back to Rafalski for the shot. The period was closely contended, but Detroit had a 1-0 lead after one.
It was enough to silence the Pittsburgh fans a little bit, but in all honesty, the Penguins played well enough to make one think they still had a shot. Even after falling behind, they didn't lose their compusure, as they had in the first two games of the series.
(Coming up: More on Game Six, the officials remain in the spotlight after the drama of Game Five, links you can enjoy, and a YouTube of some sort)
The biggest name on the free agent market this summer has found a new home, and it's not a home many people expected him to end up in. As he promised, Marian Hossa did indeed sign a contract for less than market value to win a Stanley Cup. The surprising part? It's a one year deal with the Detroit Red Wings. 
The photo you see here is Detroit Red Wings assistant coach 
After 1,316 games, regular and postseason, the NHL's 2007-08 campaign came to a close last night in Pittsburgh when the Red Wings carried away their 11th Stanley Cup.
